Springsteen Denounces Trump Immigration Tactics at Benefit Concert

Bruce Springsteen used a surprise performance at a New Jersey benefit concert on January 17 to denounce the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics and dedicate a song to Renee Good, a Minneapolis woman fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent earlier that month.

The 76-year-old musician appeared unannounced at the Light of Day Winterfest, an annual event at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank that raises funds for Parkinson's disease research and related disorders. During a 75-minute set, Springsteen introduced his 1978 track "The Promised Land" with a lengthy preamble criticizing federal interventions in American cities. "I wrote this song as an ode to American possibility," he told the audience. "Right now we are living through incredibly critical times. The United States, the ideals and the values for which it stood for the past 250 years, is being tested as it has never been in modern times. Those values and those ideals have never been as endangered as they are right now."

Springsteen urged the crowd to stand against what he described as heavily armed federal troops using aggressive tactics in urban areas. He emphasized core...