As the Super Bowl drew tens of millions of viewers and ignited political controversy over its halftime show, officials inside the Trump Department of Homeland Security say federal immigration agents were focused on a very different mission: arresting violent criminals across the country.
According to Fox News, a DHS spokesperson told the outlet that while Immigration and Customs Enforcement was being publicly criticized and “demonized” during the game and surrounding events, agents continued operations that resulted in the arrests of individuals convicted of serious crimes, including murder, rape and sexual offenses involving children.
President Donald Trump and many conservatives sharply criticized the Super Bowl halftime performance by Latin trap artist Bad Bunny, whose public statements have repeatedly targeted ICE.
DHS officials said that rhetoric spilled over into the broader event, even as enforcement actions continued nationwide.
“While ICE law enforcement officers were demonized at the Super Bowl, our officers were risking their lives to arrest public safety threats from American neighborhoods,” DHS said in a statement.
Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin echoed that message, stressing that agents remained active despite criticism from celebrities and entertainers.
“While ICE law enforcement was being demonized at the Super Bowl, the heroic men and women of ICE continued risking their lives to arrest criminal illegal alien murderers, pedophiles, and rapists from our communities,” McLaughlin said. “Despite smears from Hollywood, ICE is making our country safer every single day.”
According to DHS, arrests over Super Bowl weekend included Mario Rosales-Figueroa, an illegal alien from Mexico convicted of sex with a minor, who was taken into custody in Visalia, California. In Las Vegas, agents arrested Salvadoran national Luis Edenilson Ortiz-Lopez, convicted of gross or open lewdness, and Guillermo Arturo Ramirez-Londono, a Colombian national convicted of two counts of sexual assault on a minor under 14.
On the East Coast, ICE arrested Rudy Roa-Fuentes, an illegal alien from the Dominican Republic, convicted of murder, along with Anderson Mejia-Bonilla, from El Salvador, who was convicted of rape.
Nearby in Pennsylvania, Guatemalan national Eduardo Ramos-Domingo was arrested after a conviction for aggravated assault involving a deadly weapon.
Additional arrests were reported in North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and Mississippi, involving convictions ranging from kidnapping and aggravated assault to statutory sexual offenses and alien smuggling.
The DHS response comes amid renewed attention on Bad Bunny’s public denunciations of ICE. While accepting a Grammy Award, the artist said “ICE out,” adding, “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans.”
McLaughlin said ICE’s enforcement focus remains unchanged.
“Seventy percent of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.,” she said, adding that the figure does not include “foreign fugitives, terrorists, and gang members who lack a rap sheet in the U.S.”
She also warned that heated rhetoric has consequences, saying attacks on ICE officers have increased by more than 1,300 percent.
