4 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Outside Lands performer skewers Trump for ‘ruthless attacks' on ICE protesters
Doechii took aim at President Donald Trump and his administration while accepting the award for best female hip-hop artist at the Black Entertainment Television Awards.
The rapper, who is set to perform at San Francisco's Outside Lands at Golden Gate Park on Aug. 8, called attention to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and Trump's deployment of the National Guard to quell the subsequent protests.
'I do want to address what's happening right now, outside the building,' she said at the event on Monday, June 9, which was held at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
'These are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities,' she continued. 'In the name of law and order, Trump is using military forces to stop a protest, and I want you all to consider what kind of government it appears to be — when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us.'
Protests against ICE's surge of immigration arrests began Friday, June 6, and over the weekend, Trump sent 2,000 National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles to interfere with protests, a move that California officials said would only ratchet up confrontations.
'We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved,' California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X. 'This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they're actually needed.'
A number of other political figures and celebrities have also spoken out against Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard troops.
Fellow Outside Lands performer, pop singer Finneas, shared his own harrowing experience being tear-gassed at a peaceful protest to social media on Sunday, June 8, while Billie Joe Armstrong, frontman of East Bay punk rock trio Green Day, shared a video of the demonstrations to Instagram, nodding to ICE by captioning the post with emojis of a middle finger and an ice cube.
More than 150 people have been arrested at ICE demonstrations in San Francisco, and the federal agency has continued arrests at the city's immigration courts as of Tuesday, June 10.
'What type of government is that?' the 'Denial is a River' artist continued during her televised speech. 'People are being swept up and torn from their families? We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear. And I hope we stand together my brothers and my sisters against hate and we protest against it.'
