On Super Bowl Sunday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the surprise arrest of rapper 21 Savage, explaining to bewildered reporters that the presumed Atlanta native is a U.K. citizen—and that a 2014 "aggravated felony" drug conviction merited his immediate detention.

Ten days later, however, the agency has dropped that charge against him, since the "conviction" in question was actually vacated last year. Now, the sole grounds on which the federal government seeks to deport him is that he overstayed a visa after emigrating to the United States with his family when he was 7 years old.

The particulars of 21 Savage's immigration history still aren't really clear. His team has asserted that he is not at fault for the loss of his legal status; given that he was a minor when his visa ostensibly expired, this phrasing suggests that his parents might be responsible for not preventing the lapse. They also claim that in connection with a 2013 attempted robbery in which he was shot six times, he applied in 2017 for a U visa, which is given to crime victims who assist law-enforcement officials with an active investigation—a revelation that makes ICE's sudden, urgent need to arrest him earlier this month seem, at best, curious.

21 Savage is a very famous person, which has already allowed his attorneys to publicize enough details about the absurdity of ICE's conduct to get their client released from custody on bond; yesterday, he and his mom flew back to Atlanta on a private jet. From here on, every stage of the proceedings against him—he will reportedly receive an expedited hearing sometime soon—will elicit progressively more intense media scrutiny, especially if his deportation to the U.K. starts to appear imminent. And as the chorus of celebrities excoriating ICE and calling for his exoneration grows louder, it will be in the best interests of all parties to resolve this matter as soon as practicable.

This story, however, is only a story because of who 21 Savage is, not because of what is happening to him. He is, for example, one of well over a million undocumented young people whose parents brought them to the U.S. as children, and who now face an uncertain future because the White House is fighting like hell to deny them paths to citizenship in the only country they've ever really known. Under the Trump administration, he is one of tens of thousands of immigrants with no criminal record, whose undocumented status alone is now deemed sufficient to take them by force from the communities in which they live, work, pay taxes, and raise families. (21 Savage has three young children; all of them are U.S. citizens.)

And he is one of God knows how many people who have been victimized by the cruelty of ICE, an out-of-control agency so defined by its own incompetence that it routinely detains and moves to deport U.S. citizens before someone, hopefully, manages to make it aware of its mistakes. There are multiple reasons 21 Savage should not have been subject to arrest in anything that might be termed a decent or compassionate or civil society: the absence of the alleged felony drug conviction, yes, but also the fact that the very existence of his pending visa application seems to indicate that important information about him would have been freely available to ICE, had anyone cared to check before obtaining a warrant.

This is not a decent or compassionate or civil society, though. This is America, where a long-broken immigration system has joined forces with a virulently anti-immigration president to find creative new ways for the justice system to devalue and destroy the lives of people of color. If 21 Savage prevails, he will do so largely because he is fortunate enough to have the resources, both financial and intangible, to defend himself against the inhumanity and capriciousness of this system. Already, his case is a sobering reminder of the many more who do not.