Kristi Noem says ICE will be at Bad Bunny Super Bowl show, blasts NFL

Kristi Noem has confirmed that ICE will be present at the 2026 Super Bowl.

The Department of Homeland Security Secretary says Immigration and Customs Enforcement will monitor the final game of the NFL postseason in February, which will feature Bad Bunny as its halftime show performer.

“There will be, because the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for keeping it safe,” she told The Benny Show‘s Benny Johnson when asked if ICE will have a presence at the event, which will take place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. “I have the responsibility for making sure that everybody [who] goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave. And that’s what America is about.”

She continued, “Yeah, we’ll be all over that place. And I can’t— we’re going to enforce the law.”

Noem added that football fans must be patriotic in order to attend the Super Bowl. “I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country,” she said.

Johnson then asked Noem if she has any words for the NFL, and suggested that the organization was attempting to “send a message” to the Trump administration by hiring Bad Bunny as its headliner.

“They suck and we’ll win and God will bless us,” Noem responded, “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 and they’re so weak. We’ll fix it.”

Representatives for the NFL and Bad Bunny did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s requests for comment.

Bad Bunny, who boasted the third-most streams globally on Spotify in 2024 despite not releasing an album that year, was officially announced as the halftime show performer on Sunday. The artist reacted to landing the slot in a statement.

“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” the musician, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, said. “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. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el halftime show del Super Bowl.”

The Super Bowl will mark Bad Bunny’s only performance in the continental U.S. to promote his latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, opting to avoid the area in favor of a residency in his native Puerto Rico (which is a U.S. territory) and a world tour in Latin America, Australia, and Europe.

Last month, Bad Bunny revealed that he declined the opportunity to bring his tour to the continental U.S. because he feared ICE would target concertgoers. “I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.,” he told i-D. “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.”

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Corey Lewandowski, a former campaign manager for Donald Trump who now serves as Noem’s informal advisor, confirmed Ocasio’s fears when he threatened that DHS would send ICE to the Super Bowl on Wednesday.

“There is nowhere 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 and apprehend you and put you in a detention facility and deport you.”

All Puerto Rican citizens are also American citizens, and it is impossible for them to enter the U.S. illegally because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. Still, Lewandowski claimed, “If there are illegal aliens, I don’t care if it’s a concert for Johnny Smith or Bad Bunny or anybody else. We’re going to do enforcement everywhere. We are going to make Americans safe. That is a directive from the president. If you’re in this country illegally, go home.”