(Photo Credit: PR Photos)
Rapper 21 Savage has donated $25,000 to the Southern Poverty Law Center, AJC reports.
The SPLC is the civil rights group that helped him when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year. The Grammy-nominated artist, born Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, was taken into custody in Georgia’s DeKalb County Feb. 3 on suspicion that he is from the United Kingdom and overstayed his visa.
He has long considered Atlanta his home. His attorney Charles Kuck said in a statement that Abraham-Joseph is making the SPLC donation public “because everyday Americans need to know that ICE is using civil immigration detention as a weapon against immigrants, many of whom, like 21 Savage, have relief from deportation and are able to fix their immigration status.”
After the rapper was arrested, the SPLC was one of several national organizations that called for his release.
“Creating oppressively adverse conditions of detention, like those in Irwin County, Georgia, far away from family and legal counsel, causes despair and hopelessness, and forces these men and women to give up on their immigration claims,” said Kuck, a managing partner at the Atlanta-based firm Kuck Baxter Immigration LLC.
