Homeland Security Secretary and former South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is promising an increased number of U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents at the upcoming 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
“There will be ICE enforcement at the Super Bowl. There will be, because the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for keeping it safe, so I have the responsibility for making sure everybody who goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave, and that’s what America is about,” Noem, 53, told right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson on Friday, October 3, in response to the news that international super star Bad Bunny would be performing during halftime.
She continued, “So yeah, we’ll be all over that place … We’re going to enforce the law. So I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
(It should be noted that Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States and everyone born in Puerto Rico, like Bad Bunny, is an automatic U.S. citizen with full citizenship rights under the U.S. Constitution.)
Bad Bunny is officially headlining the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show in 2026. In an Instagram announcement video shared on Sunday, September 28, the “Moscow Mule” hitmaker, 31, was seen dressed in a tailored suit as he gazed into the camera lens. As the video panned out, Bad Bunny (real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) […]
Noem — who has been heavily criticized for her many law enforcement ride-alongs, in which she allows right-wing personalities like Johnson and Dr. Phil, to document ICE agents detaining people believed to have illegally migrated to the U.S. — went on to criticize the NFL for choosing Bad Bunny, 31, to perform the coveted halftime show.
“Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day,” Noem told Johnson after he asked if she had a message for the NFL. “And they won’t be able to sleep at night, ‘cause they don’t know what they believe, and they’re so weak. We’ll fix that.”
Kristi Noem, Bad Bunny Getty Images
Johnson himself has loudly criticized the NFL for choosing Bad Bunny as the halftime performer, saying during his Wednesday, October 1, episode of his YouTube show that the singer is just “a Puerto Rican dude whose music I haven’t heard any of” and a singer who “doesn’t sing in English.”
(Bad Bunny’s album Un Verano Sin Ti is the most-streamed album in Spotify history, surpassing 20.6 billion streams as of September 2025. He is consistently one of the most-streamed artists on the platform.)
While speaking to Corey Lewandowski, a top advisor to President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024 who now works closely with the Department of Homeland Security, Johnson again asked if ICE would be present at the Super Bowl in response to Bad Bunny’s performance.
“There is nowhere you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Lewandowski said. “We will find you and put you in a detention facility and deport you. So know that this is a very real situation under this administration, which is contrary to how it used to be.”
Bad Bunny (real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) was confirmed as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime performer on Sunday, September 28, despite the singer previously promising not to take his hit Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour to the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s so-called “immigration crackdown.”
“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate — I’ve performed there many times,” Bad Bunny said at the time. “All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent. I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S., but specifically, for a residency here in Puerto Rico, when we are an unincorporated territory of the U.S. … People from the U.S. could come here to see the show.”
He continued, “But there was the issue of, like, f***ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
Noem’s comments on Friday seemed to contradict those made by the White House on the same day.
“As far as ICE being at the Super Bowl, as far as I’m aware there’s no tangible plan for that in store right now,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday. “However, of course this administration is always going to arrest and deport illegal immigrants when we find them if they are criminals. We’re going to do the right thing by our country.”