Rapper Slick Rick Facing Deportation

MIAMI (RnB Magazine) - Rapper Rick 'Slick Rick' Walters has been held in a federal immigration jail since last month and is facing deportation to his native Britain because of an attempted murder conviction 11 years ago, his lawyer said.
Walters had been ordered deported following his conviction, but that order was never enforced.

The rapper was arrested by immigration officials last month in Miami while performing aboard a cruise ship that toured in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands . Immigration officials charged that he had re-entered the United States illegally after leaving the country to perform in the Tom Joyner Foundation's Fantastic Voyage 2002, said his attorney, Alex Solomiany.
Walters remained held Wednesday at an immigration detention facility in Bradenton, 32 miles south of Tampa.

Walters' lawyers have asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to reconsider the rapper's custody status. Appeals could block his deportation for the rest of the year.

Walters, a London native, was convicted in New York in 1991 for shooting his cousin and another person. He spent five years in prison before being released in 1996, and has been living in New York.

While he was imprisoned, the INS sought his deportation. In 1995, Walters won the right to stay in the country, but INS appeals eventually overturned that decision in 1997. The Board of Immigration Appeals then ordered Walters deported, but the INS never told him to leave, Solomiany said.
Walters, who had lived in the United States since 1975, was a legal resident but never became a citizen.

Slick Rick's album "The Great Adventures of Slick Rick," released in 1988, went platinum. He has released three other albums, all of which went gold.