Gloria Estefan Says She Carries Her Passport ‘Just in Case’

Pop legend Gloria Estefan isn’t holding back about what she sees happening in Donald Trump’s America. The four-time Grammy winner says some of the current immigration crackdowns remind her of life under Fidel Castro’s rule in Cuba — the country her family fled more than 60 years ago.

“I have lived in the U.S. for 66 years — never have I seen freedoms being eroded in the way they are now,” Estefan, 68, told The Times. “I know people who are in the country legally and have been taken away.”

The “Conga” and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” icon shared one story that hit close to home — a friend who’d been in the U.S. for 25 years on a visa and paid taxes, only to be detained at her last immigration appointment. “She’s been at a detention center for five months,” Estefan said.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient added that she now keeps her passport card with her at all times — just in case. “Who knows what can happen,” she said. “I was born in Cuba — that’s why we’re so wary of what’s happening, because this is the way things happened there.”

Estefan said she and her family often speak Spanish when out together, something that now feels “very natural — but also, at times, a little risky.”

The singer’s emotional comments come as political tensions over immigration and national identity continue to divide the country — and as Estefan draws chilling parallels between her past and America’s present.