Bruce Springsteen is weighing in on the latest flashpoint in the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown, and he did it from the stage. During a performance on Saturday, Bruce Springsteen dedicated a song to the memory of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was killed when an ICE agent shot into her vehicle during an encounter in Minneapolis.
Renee Good’s Ex Says She’d Just Dropped Off Her Son Before Deadly ICE Encounter
According to Good’s ex-husband, she had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school when she encountered the ICE agents. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed the victim tried to “weaponize her vehicle” to run over an officer near an ICE vehicle stuck on a snow-lined street before he opened fire.
However, state and local officials have strongly disputed claims the shooting, which was captured on video, was done in self-defense, as tensions escalated amid the deployment of some 2,000 federal agents this week as part of the latest surge in immigration enforcement, along with claims of welfare fraud in the Somali immigrant community.
Bruce Springsteen Delivers Blistering Message On Democracy Before Performing ‘The Promised Land’
Springsteen addressed the situation while speaking at the Light of Day Winterfest main event show on Saturday, January 17, in New Jersey, criticizing the administration’s presence in Minneapolis and the shooting that left Good dead.
“I wrote this song as an ode to American possibility,” said Springsteen while introducing “The Promised Land.” “It was about a both beautiful but flawed country, that we are, and the country that we could be. Right now, we are living through incredibly critical times. The United States, the ideals and the values for which it stood for the past 250 years, is being tested as it’s never been in modern times.”
“Those values and those ideals have never been as endangered as they are right now,” Springsteen continued. “So as we gather tonight in this beautiful display of love and care and thoughtfulness and community, if you believe in democracy and liberty and believe the truth still matters, you must speak out, and it’s worth fighting for.”