Jamaican Dancehall artist Squash has been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Florida, according to independent news outlet DancehallMag.
Online records from the agency reveal that as of Monday night (May 22), Squash, whose real name is Andrae Maurice Whittaker, was being held at an ICE detention facility in Miami.
This isn’t Squash’s first stint in a detention facility.
In August 2018, he 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 United States for the first time in September 2019. .
The Ohh Lala La artist’s detention comes after 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.
It also comes after Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a sweeping immigration bill, which he said was crucial to “ensuring the Florida taxpayers are not footing the bill for illegal immigration,” according to CNN. But, the new measures will not go into effect until July.
