Bruce Springsteen releases new anti-ICE song ‘Streets of Minneapolis’

Bruce Springsteen has released a new song, ‘Streets of Minneapolis’, protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) occupation of the city and recent killings of two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.

The song comes after a New Jersey performance earlier this month, at which Springsteen dedicated his song ‘Promised Land’ to Good, who was killed on January 7. Pretti was killed on Saturday, January 24; Springsteen wrote ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ the same day.

“I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis,” Springsteen posted on social media. “It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”

In the song, Springsteen speaks of “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” (Department of Homeland Security), “chants of ICE out now!” and how “against smoke and rubber bullets,…citizens stood for justice”. “Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice/Singing through the bloody mist…We’ll remember the names of those who died/On the streets of Minneapolis,” sings Springsteen in the song’s chorus.

In the wake of both killings, the Trump administration argued that the victims were to blame, despite video recordings suggesting otherwise. After Good was killed while trying to drive away from ICE agents, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called her a “domestic terrorist” who tried to “weaponise her vehicle”. After Pretti was killed while carrying a gun on his person, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called him an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents”, despite the fact that Pretti made no attempt to draw the weapon, and had been disarmed at the time he was shot.

“Their claim was self defense, sir,” Springsteen sings of the administration’s accounts. “Just don’t believe your eyes/It’s our blood and bones/And these whistles and phones/Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”.

Springsteen has long been a vocal critic of US President Donald Trump. Last year, at a performance in Manchester, he called the Trump administration “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous”, and called them out for “taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers.”

Many other celebrities, including Billie Eilish, FINNEAS, Olivia Rodrigo, and Neil Young, have spoken out against ICE and the Trump administration in the wake of the killings.

At the end of the post that accompanied the song’s release, Springsteen signed off: “Stay free, Bruce Springsteen”.

Listen to ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ now: