Rapper 21 Savage was scheduled to perform at the Grammys on Sunday night, where he was also nominated in several categories. The Atlanta-based performer, who is known offstage as Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, wasn’t there because he’s being held without bail by US immigration officials for overstaying a visa over a decade ago.

Holding Bin Abraham-Joseph prisoner indefinitely for a visa violation doesn’t make sense – he does not pose a flight risk, or a threat to the community – unless you confront the painful reality that many of us who work as advocates for justice have been saying now for some time. It doesn’t matter if you are black, Asian or Latinx, or if a government official is an unjust district attorney or an out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agent – if you are a person of color, they will find a way to lock you up.

The threat Bin Abraham-Joseph presents is not to the community, but to the system of white supremacy that underlies American policy. He is a black man, and in a nationally televised performance just days before his arrest he dared to criticise our government’s sinful policy of separating immigrant families at the border. For that, apparently, he was made the object of what Ice officials admitted was a targeted sting. Early media reports amplified falsehoods about Bin Abraham-Joseph, which reporters took from authorities without even considering their source – a phenomenon of criminalization in the press that has become commonplace.

The threat he presents is not to the community, but to the system of white supremacy that underlies American policy

By targeting Bin Abraham-Joseph, Ice has managed to prove clearly that their aggressive tactics have nothing to do with border security, just like local law enforcement’s perpetuation of the system of mass incarceration has nothing to do with community safety. Both are about maintaining power for a dwindling white majority. Any elected leader who claims to care about racial justice therefore has a responsibility to demand that Ice release Bin Abraham-Joseph, not to mention end the inhumane detention and separation of families with children. Any journalist who wants to talk about the truth needs to talk about this. Unlike Ice officials, they are directly accountable to American voters. They should keep in mind that communities of color, who make up more of America than ever before, are together on this.

One of the most well-known tactics of white supremacy, that has sadly been effective, is to pit communities of color against each other, so that we fight over the meager resources available to help our communities. Divided, we are less of a threat.

But, more than ever, our communities see our struggles as linked. It’s why the two of us, a black man and undocumented Asian American, are working together on this. It’s why more and more organizing of these communities includes work to bring in allies from other communities of color.

What we share is not just a generalized oppression, but the very specific experience of being targeted, specifically and relentlessly, by law enforcement.

Undocumented immigrants are too often forced to live in the shadows. We learn to hide in plain sight to prevent Ice from ripping us from our homes, families and lives without any due recourse. We live with this looming constraint on all of our aspirations for our lives and families.

We share the very specific experience of being targeted, specifically and relentlessly, by law enforcement

At a young age, black boys and girls learn how to diminish ourselves – be it in the classroom, at the workplace, or walking on the street. We are taught to not attract attention in public spaces, lest we draw the always-watchful eyes of the law.

In both cases, our communities wind up accomplishing the goals of a white supremacist system – we destroy our true, authentic selves. We remove ourselves from full participation in society. We are silenced, as Bin Abraham-Joseph was just silenced.

None of this is new. The recent surge in anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States has been startling in its ferocity, but its roots run deep, intertwined with the atrocities visited on generations of black bodies. After all, forcibly separating immigrant families at the border is not entirely new for a nation that imprisons more people per capita than any other, and jails people of color, in particular, at disproportionate rates. The United States has the largest imprisoned population in the world, in terms of both citizens in prison (2,172,800) and non-citizens in immigrant detention centers (39,322). Ice is particularly punitive to black immigrants, who face the highest deportation and incarceration levels of non-citizens.

The system of white supremacy cannot sustain itself on numbers in this country, and it is fighting hard against the changes that are coming. It wants a generation of us kept quiet, locked away and unable to fight for change, just like Bin Abraham-Joseph. If we want to hear his voice again, and the voices of thousands of people of color languishing behind bars in local jails, state prisons and Ice detention camps, then we have to start recognizing that none of this is about safety or justice. It’s about power and control, and who has it. It’s about a system of white supremacy. Every day, voters and consumers are making it clear they have no interest in supporting that system. It’s time for politicians and journalists to listen.