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Zach Bryan is using his music to speak out against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its ongoing raids under President Donald Trump’s current policies.
In the Grammy winner’s latest song, which he teased with a short clip on Instagram on Friday, Oct. 3, Bryan took aim at ICE, singing, “I heard the cops came/ Cocky m————, ain’t they?”
“And ICE is gonna come bust down your door / Try to build a house no one builds no more/ But I got a telephone/ Kids are all scared and all alone,” read the lyrics. “The middle finger’s rising, and it won’t stop showing/ Got some bad news/ The fading of the red, white and blue.”
Bryan captioned the post with the last line of the song in the clip: “The fading of the red, white and blue.”
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Although Bryan has spoken out against ICE, a law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security, he has been a longtime supporter of the armed forces. He served in the Navy for eight years after enlisting at the age of 17.
In October 2021, Bryan opened up about leaving the Navy in an Instagram post. “It made a man out of me, truly,” he wrote. “If it was my decision, I would never get out of the worlds greatest Navy, but here I am and they kindly honorably discharged me to go play some music.”
“The best eight years of my life were spent serving the best country in the whole damn world,” he wrote.
Trump and his administration have ramped up mass deportations since he returned to the White House in January.
Throughout the past few months, musicians and celebrities alike have spoken out against ICE’s raids and deportations — and the response to the Trump administration’s outcry over the Super Bowl naming Bad Bunny as the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.
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The Puerto Rican rapper, who is a U.S. citizen, was announced as the performer for the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show on Sunday, Sept. 28. Bad Bunny opted not to take his Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour to the U.S. due to Trump’s administration’s use of ICE.
“ICE will have enforcement at the Super Bowl for the Bad Bunny halftime show,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief of staff Corey Lewandowski said on Oct. 1.
“There is nowhere you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Lewandowski added. “Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else. We will find you and apprehend you and put you in a detention facility and deport you.”
On Oct. 3, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed ICE will “be all over” the Super Bowl, set to be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clarita, Calif.
“We are going to enforce the law,” she said on Oct. 3. “So I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
