The NFL’s decision to make Bad Bunny the headliner for this year’s Super Bowl halftime show has collided head-on with immigration politics, drawing fire from the Trump administration and sparking a sharp warning from federal officials.
Corey Lewandowski, now an adviser at the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed that ICE agents will be deployed in force at the Super Bowl, an announcement he made Wednesday during an interview with Benny Johnson. The move comes after scrutiny of Bad Bunny’s past denunciations of U.S. immigration enforcement.
“There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else,” Lewandowski declared. “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.”
CONFIRMED: ICE will be active and on-site at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance.
Trump Advisor Corey Lewandowski warns: there’s no place ICE won’t go to remove criminal aliens from the US, even the Super Bowl:
“There is nowhere you can provide safe haven to people who are in… pic.twitter.com/kfKlGcuR7Q
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 1, 2025
The warning doubles as a pointed rebuke of the NFL’s choice of halftime entertainment. Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has long criticized ICE and Trump-era immigration policy.
At one point, he suggested he would stop touring in the United States entirely, saying: “Honest, I can’t risk the safety of my fans like that. Mainland America just doesn’t feel necessary to me anymore.” He even admitted in a recent interview that ICE raids were a major fear at his U.S. concerts.
And yet, when the NFL offered him its most coveted stage, he reversed course. “What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” Bad Bunny said in accepting the halftime role. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown … this is for my people, my culture and our history.”
Lewandowski was unimpressed. “It’s so shameful that they’ve decided to pick somebody who just seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime game,” he said, noting that there are “plenty of great bands and entertainment people out there who could be playing at that show that would be bringing people together and not separating them.”
