Ok first of all who knew this guy was British? Talk about plot twists.
But let's get real here…it's been no secret that the United State's immigration system is flawed, to say the least. As much as I prefer not diving into the toxic cesspool of politics, things are getting a little ridiculous, namely this country's inability to get to a reasonable immigration solution…namely 23 years after the last major immigration reform and 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants later.
Simply put, in order to come legally into the country you either have to have an immediate relative or US employer essentially vouch for you, leaving so many people and families who have no other options to cut corners, like overstaying their visa or just coming in illegally.
In a nutshell, the proverbial "line" to get in the country is inaccessible to many people who need it, and even for those who can wait in line, the wait is at minimum five-plus years, stretching to the decade ranges if from higher traffic regions like Mexico or India. It's not as simple as just doing the time and going through the process for many.
This causes many people to resort to desperate measures to come into the country for a better life, people like refugees, struggling families, and even world-famous rappers.
Then there's ICE (immigration and customs enforcement), whose job is to keep everybody in line, including detaining, arresting, and deporting as they deem necessary per the laws in place. As it so happens, famed rapper 21 Savage is from East London and was recently detained for 10 days because his parents neglected to renew his visa when he was younger. He now faces deportation due to a recent law passed by Trump saying that an applicant must stay in their home country while an application processes, which takes a whopping four years.
Because the best time to detain a someone is when they're rich, famous, successful and doing charity work to teach kids financial literacy, not before when they were heavily involved in gang life and trapping, right? Mind you, he has been in the country for 19 years without immigration issues. Now I'm not saying correlation implies causation, but he was detained only 5 days after he rapped a verse about immigration and border issues on the tonight show. Surprising.
21 Savage luckily was granted release on bond due to a stellar legal team and, well being famous. But we have to remember, of the average of 44,631 people ICE has in custody daily, how many of them have the same resources? Granted, while ICE also deals with actual criminals, many of these people are just like 21 in that they were simply caught in an unfortunate situation and are now dealing with the consequences of a messed up system.
In an effort for solidarity, celebrities Kendrick Lamar, SZA, J Cole, Post Malone, Future, and more detail the different ways 21 real, innocent people were detained by ICE in a powerful delivered video.
Paired with the recent record-length government shutdown over a half-assed promise of a wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for, we MUST pay more attention to immigration reform and be part of the discussion in order to create real impact. We have got to change our thinking and educate ourselves in the matter and remember that peoples lives are at stake while we waste valuable time and energy blaming everything on an angry, red balloon excuse of a man in a suit. Every state has congressional representatives, speaking for the US and everyone in their own state.
At the current rate, the only thing our Congress represents is an overwhelming lack of unity and even apathy towards perhaps the biggest humanitarian crisis in America. Forget politics, forget Trump, forget the power games. These are real people, our families, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, siblings, kids...millions of REAL people being completely toyed around with because we can't come to a decision on how to file paperwork.
