Jay-Z says the arrest of rapper 21 Savage is "an absolute travesty" and has hired a lawyer to help his fight against deportation.
The lawyer hired by Jay-Z to aid rapper 21 Savage in his fight against deportation told NBC News the attention to the case is important to others detained in immigration cases.
Alex Spiro, a New York-based attorney, said Jay-Z hired him with the directive: "get him out and figure out what happened."
On Sunday, 21 Savage, who was born Sha Yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, was arrested in the Atlanta area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said he is a British national and was in this country illegally.
The 26-year-old musician is being held pending deportation proceedings and if deported faces a potential 10-year ban from re-entering the country.
ICE said that the rapper was brought to the U.S. as a child legally in 2005, on a visa that expired a year later in July 2006, leaving him without legal status.
"At the end, the attention on the case is important for all the other incarcerated people and that's important to me," Spiro told NBC News. "And it's important to Jay."
"In addition to being a successful recording artist, 21 deserves to be reunited with his children immediately," Jay-Z said this week in a statement on his official Facebook account.