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Former Child Immigrant Nicki Minaj on Family Separation: “Please Stop This”

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 16: Nicki Minaj performs onstage during the Meadows Music and Arts Festival - Day 2 at Citi Field on September 16, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images)

Nicki Minaj was born in Trinidad, and came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at age five. Naturally, she has strong feelings about the recent wave of children who have been separated from their families and detained at the southern border, which she shared in an Instagram post this week.

“I came to this country as an illegal immigrant @ 5 years old,” she wrote in a caption accompanying a photo of children with aluminum blankets in a detainment camp. “I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place & having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5. This is so scary to me. Please stop this.”

“Can you try to imagine the terror & panic these kids feel right now?” she continued. “Not knowing if their parents are dead or alive, if they’ll ever see them again…”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkQdwN8BfBD/

Since April, more than 2,000 immigrant children have been detained at the border, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a a new zero-tolerance policy that refers every single person caught crossing the border undocumented to criminal prosecution. This week, Donald Trump signed an executive order that will allow children to be detained with their parents—but indefinitely, eliminating prior provisions about how long the government is allowed to hold them.

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