Transcription
All right, welcome back. Department of Homeland Security officials are saying that ICE agents will be at the Super Bowl. Top DHS adviser Cory Luwendowski saying that there is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in the country illegally. Not the Super Bowl, not anywhere else.
Well, all this of course coming just days after the NFL announced Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny as the headliner for the Super Bowl halftime show. The artist has been a major critic of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and ABC News Alex Stone has the story.
When the Super Bowl kicks off in Santa Clara, California in February, ICE will be there conducting immigration enforcement. At least according to Cory Luwendowski, former Trump 2016 campaign manager and current special government employee at the Department of Homeland Security, telling the Benny Johnson podcast, "There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else."
Federal agents from law enforcement agencies like ICE typically help to secure Super Bowl venues from terror attacks because they are such high-profile events. The Department of Homeland Security has not clarified if immigration enforcement really will unfold at the Super Bowl.
Luwendowski's comments come after the NFL announced Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny will headline the Super Bowl's halftime show. Bad Bunny, real named Bonito Antonio Martinez Accassio, just closed a record-breaking residency in Puerto Rico ahead of a world tour. Bad Bunny had stopped performing in the US because he said he was worried about ICE raids at his concerts, telling ID magazine, quote, "There was the issue of like ice could be outside my concert and it's something that we were talking about and very concerned about."
After the announcement that he will perform at the halftime show, Bad Bunny sang, "I'm going to to to enjoy. I'm going to to embrace the moment. I'm I'm I'm going to show um what we have, what we our music, our culture. So, no worries. I I don't I don't think about even on that. I I'm just going to stage to enjoy and and have fun."
All right. Alex Stone is joining me now with more on this. So, Alex, we know every year the security posture at the Super Bowl is huge. ICE agents are there. Is it different this time though? Is their mission different?
That we don't know yet. And and that's going to be the question through all of this. You heard Luendowski there saying they're going to be there doing immigration enforcement. I've covered probably a dozen Super Bowls and we've gone out with the Department of Homeland Security with Border Patrol before. They usually handle the airspace and the water around a Super Bowl. So, they're always there. But are they going to be there for a different mission and actually doing immigration enforcement based on what he said? Maybe. But the Department of Homeland Security isn't saying.
That's interesting. The footprint of the Santa Clara Super Bowl is so big, too.
And you got water and you've got air. And the San Jose airport is right there. I covered a Super Bowl there one year where the planes take off right over the stadium. And you've got that aspect of it as well.
There's a lot going. Okay, let's also talk about Portland though. National Guard troops have been federalized. They're not on the ground yet, though. What's the latest there?
So, they're getting trained right now in crowd control. same thing we saw here in LA where they come out. This is not what they normally do. So, they've got to learn using batons and using shields and pepper balls and and what you do with a crowd, what the law is around interacting with a crowd, what the rules of engagement are. They're doing all that now. There is a hearing, a court hearing tomorrow to decide, can they do this legally, the state of Oregon says this is illegal what the president's doing. There is a a federal court hearing tomorrow. We'll see what that judge does. Uh but they could be out on the streets this weekend, maybe early next week.
Those legal battles though have been navigated even here in Los Angeles.
Yeah. And in fact, during a prehering earlier this week, they kept saying, "We're going to look to what went on in LA." That that a lot of what was argued in LA is going to be argued in Oregon. A judge here in LA said that the deployment was not legal. That has been held up by the Ninth Circuit. It could do the same thing.
Okay. So, we'll be watching that play out for a while. Alex, always good to be with you. Yeah.