Jamaican Dancehall artist Squash has been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Florida, according to DancehallMag.
The popular artiste, known for songs like “Peace of Mind” and most recently, “Sweepstake Life,” is said to be in detention at the Krome North Service Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Miami. He has been there since Monday, May 22nd, according to online records.
Squash’s detention comes following the expiration of Title 42, the Trump-era rules that, among other things, had restricted the number of people who could be detained in ICE detention facilities like Krome, according to DancehallMag.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has also made it a mission to ensure that Florida taxpayer are not footing the bill for illegal immigration, having signed into law a sweeping immigration bill, which he said is crucial to this purpose. Those new measures however, will not go into effect until July.
In August 2018, Squash was detained in Jamaica under a State Of Emergency (SOE) sweep in St. James due to increased crime and violence in the parish. He spent five months in custody without charge, before being released in January 2019, one day before the SOE was due to expire.
He left Jamaica and performed in the US for the first time in September 2019.
