The Grammy-nominated artist who earlier this year was held in federal immigration detention told The Associated Press on Thursday night that undocumented immigrants also shouldn’t have to endure the lengthy process to obtain visas. He spoke in an exclusive interview before receiving an award from the National Immigration Law Center.
“When you’re a child, you don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “Now, you grow up and got to figure it out. Can’t get a job. Can’t get a license. I’m one of the lucky ones who became successful. It’s a lot of people who can’t.”
NILC honored 21 Savage for being an advocate for immigrant justice. He was arrested in February in what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said was a targeted operation over his expired visa.
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He spent 10 days in a detention center in south Georgia before being released.
The Atlanta-based rapper, whose given name is She’yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, is a British citizen who moved to the U.S. when he was 7. His visa expired in 2006, but his lawyers had said that wasn’t his fault.
“When you ain’t got no choice, you should be exempt,” 21 Savage said. “It’s not like I was 30, woke up and moved over here. I’ve been here since I was like 7 or 8, probably younger than that. I didn’t know anything about visas and all that. I just knew we were moving to a new place.”
He said people in his shoes should be made citizens.
“I feel like we should be exempt,” he reiterated. “I feel like we should automatically become citizens.”
Source: 21 Savage: Young undocumented immigrants should be ‘exempt’
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