Bad Bunny says he excluded the US from his forthcoming world tour due to fears that, as a prominent Latino musician, his fans would be subjected to immigration raids.
In an interview with i-D magazine on Wednesday, the three-time Grammy-winning musician was asked whether he was skipping the US “out of concern about the [mass deportations of] Latinos”.
“Man, honestly, yes,” he responded. “There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the US, 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.”
The 31-year-old, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, said the unprecedented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids across the US since Donald Trump was re-elected – the agency now aims for 3,000 minimum arrests a day – was a major factor.
“But there was the issue of – like, fucking Ice could be outside [my concert],” he told i-D. “And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
He added that he had previously performed many times in the US and that US fans could see him at his current residency in Puerto Rico – an unincorporated territory of the US, and where he was born and lives – before he embarks on his global tour this November.
The lack of US dates on the tour, in support of his sixth album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, has sparked social media speculation since it was announced in May. Bad Bunny previously told Variety that performing in the US was “unnecessary”.
He has also been vocally critical of Ice on Instagram, posting a story in June in which he referred to its agents as “sons of bitches” who can’t seem to leave “people alone and working”.
Bad Bunny’s decision comes amid increasing alarm around Ice arrests and deportations in the US. On Monday, the supreme court granted federal agents the power to stop people in Los Angeles simply for speaking Spanish or appearing Latino – a move that immigration advocates warned has “effectively legalised racial profiling”.
Across the US, Latino gatherings have been cancelled for fears of becoming Ice targets. Among the events cancelled are Philadelphia’s Carnaval de Puebla, a Guatemalan cultural celebration in Los Angeles, religious congregations in San Bernardino, and a Colombian independence day festival in Kansas.
“You only have to look a certain way and speak a certain language and then you’re in danger,” the festival’s organiser, Orlando Gutierrez, told the Guardian last month.
Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos tour begins 21 November in the Dominican Republic and wraps up next July in Belgium.
