Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave the clearest indication yet that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement would attend the Super Bowl in February, where Latin superstar Bad Bunny is scheduled to headline the halftime show.
Asked Friday by right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson if there would be “ICE enforcement” at the Super Bowl, Noem replied, “There will be,” adding that federal immigration officers would be “all over” the event.
“I have the responsibility for making sure everybody goes to the Super Bowl, has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave,” Noem said on “The Benny Show.” People should not attend the event, she went on, unless they are “law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
Bad Bunny, a Grammy-winning musician who is from Puerto Rico, rose to fame with hits such as “MIA,” “I Like It” and “Me Porto Bonito.” He recently finished a 31-show residency in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, saying he chose not to perform in the continental United States because he feared that his fans would become targets of ICE agents.
After the NFL announced last week that he would appear at the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, far-right commentators complained that Bad Bunny did not sing in English and that he had been openly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Johnson wrote on social media that Bad Bunny was a “massive Trump hater.”
When Johnson suggested in his interview with Noem that the NFL was sending a message to the Trump administration by choosing Bad Bunny to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, Noem replied, “They suck and we’ll win and God will bless us.”
Bad Bunny, who hosted the season opener of “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, used his monologue to respond to the backlash.
“I’m very happy, and I think everyone is happy about it,” he said, referring to his Super Bowl appearance. “Even Fox News.” The show then played a montage of Fox News hosts whose words had been spliced together to say, “Bad Bunny is my favorite musician, and he should be the next president.”
The artist later spoke in Spanish, saying that his Super Bowl performance would be an important milestone not readily erased. “And if you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn,” he added.
A representative for Bad Bunny, a representative for the NFL, and a representative for Roc Nation, which will produce the Super Bowl halftime show, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said, “There is no safe haven for violent, criminal illegal aliens in the United States.”
The Trump administration has for months cracked down on illegal immigration in several big cities. U.S. citizens, many of them Latino men, have been stopped by ICE agents and in some cases taken into custody.
Noem’s comments echo those made by one of her chief advisers, Corey Lewandowski, on “The Benny Show” on Wednesday.
“There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Lewandowski said. “Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else.
“We will find you,” he went on. “We will apprehend you. We will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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