Slick Rick Prepares for Deportation
SOHH.COM — BY Q
Published · reached Usenet December 30, 2002
Slick Rick Prepares for Deportation
written by Q
Monday - December 30, 2002
Despite all the support from fans and label execs, the outlook of Slick Rick returning home to the Bronx is grim. Rick's last appeal has been denied and at any moment he could be deported back to his place of birth, London, England. On late Friday evening, the received a bit of good news as his deportation has been stayed, but that doesn't mean that he will be staying here either.
"Looks like a 95 percent chance that I'm being deported," Rick told the Associated Press. "So I have to be a realist. I have to prepare myself for the worst right now. My whole life has been uprooted. One minute you're in America, you got your ties ... the next minute you're being deported. It's ripping whole family apart. It's nerve-racking."
Rick's wife, Mandy Aragones, is currently packing up and preparing for a new life in London. His children from a previous relationship will stay in the U.S. with their mother.
Slick Rick has spent six months behind bars in a Manatee County Jail in Florida after being arrested on immigration charges. Under new immigration laws, foreigners convicted of aggravated felonies are to be deported.
"It's like being re-punished," Rick said. "I was in the process of working on another album. I'd been on the street for seven years, no problems."