Why has the US government threatened NFL, Bad Bunny with ICE at Super Bowl warning

The National Football League’s (NFL) decision to pick the three-time Grammy winner, Bad Bunny, as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show performer has created a political storm in the USA. The annual league championship game of the NFL is one of the biggest sporting events in the world and the 60th edition of the match will take place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on 8 February next year.

However, a US president Donald Trump advisor, Corey Lewandowski and Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem are up in arms against the Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl LX, and have threatened that security officers will be there, enforcing the law at the venue during the football match.

Why USA government dislike Bad Bunny?

There are many reasons why people from the Trump government are unhappy with US citizen Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl. Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is a Spanish-language rapper whom a large section of white Americans sees as “unpatriotic” and “un-American.”

Bad Bunny will be performing entirely in Spanish at the Super Bowl 60 as the NFL hopes to woo more global fans, but local American feels it’s disrespectful to their culture. Bad Bunny has also earned a reputation for being a vocal critic of Trump’s anti-immigration policies, while also advocating LGBTQ+ rights.

Bad Bunny and the Trump administration have also been at loggerheads over the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) force, which has been handed the duty for arresting illegal immigrants and enforcing federal law. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican said last month that he would not be performing in the USA during his upcoming tours as he fears ICE raids. He fears that the ICE officers could target immigrants outside his shows in the USA.

Noem threatens Bad Bunny with ICE action

Daring Bad Bunny, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said that ICE officers will be “all over the Super Bowl.

“I have the responsibility to make sure everybody who goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave safely. That’s what America’s about,” Noem told Benny Johnson on The Benny Show. “We’ll be all over that place.”

DHS, under President Trump, will NOT ALLOW domestic terrorists to overrun our cities. We will bust their networks and bring every one of them to justice. pic.twitter.com/Hj1AqWODZv

— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) October 6, 2025

Corey Lewandowski, the Department of Homeland Security advisor to Trump, added that illegal immigrants won’t be safe even at the Super Bowl, as the officers are ready to enforce the federal law during the match.

“There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else,” Lewandowski said on The Benny Show.

“We will find you. We will apprehend you. We will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you. So know that that is a very real situation under this administration, which is completely contrary to what how it used to be.”

Noem attacks NFL for picking Bad Bunny

Noem attacked the NFL for choosing Bad Bunny as the halftime show performer, which she said was a “weak” decision.

“They suck (NFL), and we’ll win,” Noem. “God will bless us, and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day. And they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe.

“They’re so weak. We’ll fix it.”

Bad Bunny speaks about his Super Bowl performance in Spanish at end of SNL monologue:

“If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have 4 months to learn.” pic.twitter.com/bT5ujmmh3P

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 5, 2025

Bad Buny, meanwhile, has hit back at his critics with a charged-up monologue on Saturday Night Live.

“I’m very happy, and I think everyone is happy about it, even Fox News,” he said. “Bad Bunny is my favorite musician. He should be the next president.”

Continuing in Spanish, he said, “especially all the Latinos and Latinas in the whole world, and here in the United States, all the people who have worked to open doors. More than an achievement for me, it’s a milestone for all of us, demonstrating that our footprints and our contribution in this country, no one can ever remove nor erase.”

At the end, he added, “And if you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”