Several Change.org petitions to deport Nicki Minaj to her native Trinidad and Tobago have amassed more than 120,000 signatures combined. The most popular petition — garnering over 83,000 signatures — started on July 9, 2025, and lists Minaj’s “harrass[ment]” of “the Carters” as one of the inciting issues (Minaj had been incessantly lambasting Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter on X at the time). There are also at least three other petitions created between Dec. 21 and 28, 2025, that coincide with Minaj’s controversial Dec. 21 appearance alongside conservative activist Erika Kirk at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, where the rapper praised President Donald Trump’s administration.
One of the recent petitions began on Dec. 27 by a 16 year-old in Chicago named Tristan Hamilton, per the website, and has gained the most ground, with over 41,000 signatures at the time of writing. Using a photo of Minaj high-fiving Kirk as the petition’s lead image, Hamilton wrote that Minaj has left her LGBTQ fans “feeling deeply betrayed,” pointing to Minaj’s AmericaFest comments, “Boys, be boys…There’s nothing wrong with being a boy.” Some have seen Minaj’s appearance at the event as the rapper aligning with Turning Point’s historically anti-trans and queerphobic leadership. “Deporting Nicki Minaj back to Trinidad would serve as a reminder that public figures need to be accountable for their words and the broader impact they have on diverse communities,” wrote Hamilton. “It’s not just about one person’s fall from grace; it’s about holding everyone to a standard of compassion and consistency, especially when they possess significant influence.” Representatives for Hamilton and Nicki Minaj did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.
Minaj’s AmericaFest appearance also came in the midst of the Trump administration’s virulent campaign against immigration as well as against several Black, Asian, Arab, and Latin territories around the world, including in the Caribbean. ProPublica reports that amid the U.S.’s recent mass deportations, over 170 U.S. citizens have also been held by immigration agents.
It’s not immediately clear whether there would be any legal basis for deporting Minaj, who reportedly wrote in 2018 that she came to the U.S. “as an illegal immigrant at 5 years old.” At the time, she had shared an Instagram post advocating against the separation of migrant children from their parents in Trump’s first administration. “I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place & having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5,” she reportedly continued. “This is so scary to me. Please stop this. Can you try to imagine the terror & panic these kids feel right now? Not knowing if their parents are dead or alive, if they’ll ever see them again.”
Minaj’s current citizenship status is also unclear, though in 2024, she said, “I’m not a citizen of America. Isn’t that crazy?” during a TikTok Live stream. “You would think that with the millions of dollars that I’ve paid in taxes to this country that I would have been given an honorary citizenship many, many, many thousands of years ago.”
While comments appear to be disabled on the largest petition calling for Minaj’s deportation, under Hamilton’s, self-proclaimed former fans wrote messages like, “It’s hard to reconcile the ‘Black Barbies’ rapper—who once spoke out about the terror of immigration policies—with this version of Nicki who cozy up to Erika Kirk, a woman whose platform is built on ideologies that have historically marginalized Black and trans voice [sic].” Using the name Charlie, the commenter continued, “It’s not just about a ‘difference of opinion’—it’s about watching someone you admired lend their immense cultural capital to people who haven’t shown that same love back to our community.”
Some TikTok users have attributed the petition to what they see as Minaj’s implicit support of anti-immigration sentiments coming back to bite her. Without endorsing the petition, @nsddahmmy said, “Its even crazier from Nicki Minaj, because as quick as they can send her to the [United Nations] to advocate for us committing more war crimes in Nigeria or to high five Erika Kirk while she disparages the demographics that make up what’s left of her fanbase, is as quick as they could have sent ICE with a one way ticket back to Trinidad.”
Other users have seemingly defended Minaj and mocked the petition with short videos merely looking into the camera with variants of captions like, “Wait a second, I thought liberals were against deportations and ICE,” positing that the petitions are hypocritical (and claiming that all “liberals” are in fact against deportations). The full scope of the petitioners’ politics is unknown.
Nicolas Gerardin
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