On Sept. 28, 2025, the National Football League (NFL) announced their 2026 Super Bowl halftime show performer as Grammy award-winning singer Bad Bunny, an international musician known for mixing Latin trap music and reggaeton. He is making history as the first male Latin artist to perform the halftime show as the lead performer.
Bad Bunny, a citizen of Puerto Rico, decided to cancel his shows on a recent tour in the United States after comments about immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) being in attendance. With the recent debate about the role of ICE in the United States, the public has developed opinions either for or against ICE’s policies. ICE’s website states that their main goal is to “enforce immigration laws within the interior to preserve national security and public safety.”. ICE agents are told to target a specific location to detain illegal immigrants, which are also known as ICE raids. Many argue this is unconstitutional, arguing that ICE agents have illegally violated the 4th Amendment by not following proper steps to detain people.
However, others think that ICE is constitutional, arguing that they are doing their job by enforcing immigration laws. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, said that ICE would be all over the Super Bowl during an appearance on Benny Johnson’s podcast “The Benny Show.”
“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,” Noem said.
In the 2024 presidential election with candidates Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump, Bad Bunny endorsed Harris and the Democratic Party. He is also anti-ICE and has openly spoken about it.
“I’ve never heard of him, I don’t know who he is, I don’t know why [the NFL is] doing it… I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” President Trump said in response to the news about the halftime show on the Greg Kelly show.
Senior Luciano Kozlenko likes that Bad Bunny is playing the halftime show because it encourages awareness of different cultures.
“I think they’re showing that you don’t have to be the stereotypical American just to be in football or in that atmosphere,” Kozlenko said. “They’re promoting diversity.”
The NFL’s Commissioner, Roger Goodell, has defended the choice despite the backlash.
“It’s carefully thought through,” Goodell said. “I’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback or criticism. It’s pretty hard to do when you have literally hundreds of millions of people that are watching.”
Despite the backlash, fans and non-fans alike of Bad Bunny are looking forward to his Super Bowl performance, as many look forward to the halftime show every year.
