A Trinidad-born sur­vivor of the 9/11 at­tack on the World Trade Cen­tre in New York wants an ex­emp­tion to re­turn home to T&T.

Ur­su­la Thomp­son, 75, was born in Guapo and left Trinidad in 1971 at the age of 24 to work in the Unit­ed States.

On Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, she was work­ing on the 64th floor of the South Tow­er when the first plane struck it just 19 floors above her.

"I was there. I had to walk down 64 flights of stairs and I al­so walked to Brook­lyn," she told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Ten years lat­er, she re­turned to Trinidad to live out the rest of her days in Pleas­antville but was forced to re­turn to the Unit­ed States last Ju­ly to re­ceive treat­ment for can­cer and has been there since. She ex­pects her treat­ment to be com­plet­ed on Tues­day fol­low­ing which she would be dis­charged from the nurs­ing home she's cur­rent­ly stay­ing at. She would like to re­turn to her Pleas­antville home af­ter be­ing away from it for so long.

"I'd rather go back home be­cause I've al­ways want­ed to go back home. I live at Pleas­antville in Trinidad. I moved every­thing and my life is back in Pleas­antville. That's why I have nowhere to stay here," she said.

Her nephew Car­los has ap­plied for an ex­emp­tion on her be­half and is yet to re­ceive any re­sponse from the au­thor­i­ties.

Fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the bor­ders on March 23 dur­ing the first phase of COVID-19 in­fec­tions lo­cal­ly, an ex­emp­tion be­came nec­es­sary for all na­tion­als who were caught out­side the coun­try to come home.

The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Stu­art Young has the sole au­thor­i­ty to grant these ex­emp­tions and has stat­ed that each ap­pli­ca­tion would be as­sessed and grant­ed on a case by case ba­sis.