Those thinking of attending the Super Bowl on February 8 next year should probably get there early. According to US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, the event will be crawling with members of ICE. “We’ll be all over that place,” she said last weekend. “People should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
The reason for this unusual mobilisation? The decision by the NFL to choose a 31-year-old Puerto Rican musician as the half-time entertainment at its annual showpiece event. Bad Bunny, real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is set to follow in the footsteps of Madonna, Beyoncé, Coldplay and others — to howls of outrage from the president down.
“I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s crazy,” Donald Trump told Newsmax. House Speaker Mike Johnson called it a “terrible decision”. The late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA organisation has announced its own alternative concert in protest. And several other critics of the NFL’s pick have asked why they couldn’t choose someone American — overlooking the fact that Puerto Rico is an “unincorporated territory” of the US.