Justin Bieber has weighed in on the border crises and A$AP Rocky’s Swedish incarceration with one tweet.
On Friday evening, President Trump tweeted that he would help to free rapper A$AP Rocky from a Swedish jail at the request of Kanye West. In response, pop star Justin Bieber thanked the President for the help on Twitter, but also asked him to ‘let those kids out of cages’, referring to the crisis at the border where asylum seekers, including many children, are being held in detention centers.
Trump spoke about A$AP Rocky’s arrest after a multitude of celebrities and politicians have come to defense of the rapper, who was arrested in Sweden earlier this month on a preliminary assault charge.
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“Many, many members of the African American community have called me, friends of mine, and said could you help,” Trump said to reporters on Friday in the Oval Office. “I personally don’t know A$AP Rocky but I can tell you that he has tremendous support from the African American community in this country and when I say African American, I think I can really say from everybody in this country, because we’re all one.”
On Friday, a Stockholm Court approved prosecutors’ requests to hold A$AP Rocky in detention for six more days because they determined he was a flight risk, The New York Times reported.
Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that he spoke with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and said the prime minister had pledged the rapper “will be treated fairly” and that discussions will continue in the next 48 hours.
Detention facilities at the border, and particularly the confinement of children, has continued to cause controversy for the Trump administration’s immigration practices as reports of inhumane conditions have spread. This past week, the U.S. government expanded its policy that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their cases can be processed.
Write to Josiah Bates at [email protected].