Bad Bunny says he decided not to tour in U.S. due to ICE raid concerns

Bad Bunny loves his American fans, and he’s showing it by not planning any future shows in the U.S.

The musician, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, confirmed fan suspicions that his upcoming Debi Tirar Mas Fotos World Tour doesn’t include any U.S. dates out of concern over increasingly hostile and widespread immigration raids by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“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. 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.,” Ocasio said in an intervew with i-D published Wednesday. “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.”

The rapper, producer, actor, and professional wrestling superfan and occasional competitor explained that “for a residency here in Puerto Rico, when we are an unincorporated territory of the U.S.,” he feels that “people from the U.S. could come here to see the show. Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world.”

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Born in Puerto Rico’s Vega Baja in 1994, Bad Bunny has previously toured the U.S. prolifically, but questions were raised when the tour in support of his most recent album, Debi Tirar Mas Fotos (I Should Have Taken More Photos), skipped the country entirely. He had a clipped response when asked about the decision in June, calling U.S. tour dates “unnecessary.”

Bad Bunny has also been outspoken in his condemnation of the ICE raids, which President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem have orchestrated in cities across the country, detaining over 60,000 individuals since January, some of them U.S. citizens.

In June, the musician shared a video depicting an ICE raid in the Puerto Rican city of Carolina to his 49 million followers on Instagram.

“Look, those motherf—ers are in these cars, RAV4s…instead of leaving the people alone and working,” he commented on the video.

The following month, he dropped the video for new song “NUEVAYoL,” which blisteringly criticized U.S. imperialism by depicting a Puerto Rican flag hanging off the tiara of the Statue of Liberty, and featured a segment of voiceover that sounds uncannily like Trump.