Springsteen ICE protest ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ highest-selling song in US last week

Bruce Springsteen’s protest song ripping what he calls the “state terror” tactics by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is topping the music sales charts in the United States.

“Streets of Minneapolis” was last week’s highest-selling song in the United States, Billboard reported Monday.

The tune took the top spot on Billboard’s digital song sales chart in the last week of January, selling 16,000 downloads, according to data from Luminate.

Billboard noted that Springsteen’s song hit No. 1 despite only being available for two days of the tracking period. 

The “Born in the USA” singer — a frequent critic of President Trump who has called his administration “corrupt” and “treasonous” — said in a social media post last week that he penned the song “in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis.”

The release followed the two separate shooting deaths last month in Minneapolis involving federal immigration authorities. In January, a federal immigration enforcement officer shot and killed a 37-year-old woman, Renee Good, during the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Less than three weeks later, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was killed by a Customs and Border Patrol agent.

In his message about his new music, Springsteen said it was “dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” 

In his song, the 76-year-old performer slammed Trump and the Department of Homeland Security, singing, “King Trump’s private army from the DHS, guns belted to their coats, came to Minneapolis to enforce the law, or so their story goes.”

“Trump’s federal thugs beat up on his face and his chest, then we heard the gunshots and Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead,” Springsteen sang in “Streets of Minneapolis.”

“Their claim was self-defense sir, 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 said in the song, in a reference to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

“We eagerly await Mr. Springsteen’s songs dedicated to the thousands of American citizens killed by criminal illegal aliens,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin previously told The Hill in response to Springsteen’s music, saying that the “brave men and women of ICE are saving lives by arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, gang members, and terrorists.”