Earlier this year, 21 Savage got into a serious legal situation as he was taken into ICE custody as they found out that he wasn’t a U.S citizen. The Atlanta rapper was actually from the United Kingdom. 21 ended up receiving legal help from Jay Z’s Roc Nation label and is good to go to handle his business in regards to making music and doing shows.
21 spoke with the Associated Press Thursday night before receiving an award from the National Immigration Law Center as he was honored for fighting for justice for immigrants. 21 said that people who grew up in America as children living here illegally should receive it automatically now. He explained that when one is a child, you don’t know what’s going on and end up growing up needing to figure things out. Examples of these include not being able to get a job or license. He also released that he’s one of the lucky ones who found success.
21 originally moved to America when he was seven. His visa ended up expiring in 2006. His defense team says that the process in renewing it was a very difficult process for him.
“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. I feel like we should be exempt,” he reiterated. “I feel like we should automatically become citizens.”
Adding on to the visa difficulty, 21 says that the process discourages immigrants who don’t have the documents because it “hangs over your head forever.” He believes these people lose hope and the kids should be able to get citizenship in order to do things in the future such as work and go to college.
21 is right on about how difficult the process is for visas and for U.S citizenship for sure. For many people. it could take as long as a decade. Hopefully, he’s able to end up getting his soon.