Ice Cube Says Donald Trump’s ICE Raids in L.A. Are Meant to ‘Traumatize’ People: ‘Nobody’s Safe, Man’

Ice Cube is standing with the immigrant families who have been targeted by the recent United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in his home city of Los Angeles.

In a clip from his radio interview on REAL 92.3 LA’s The Cruz Show posted Thursday (Aug. 7), the rapper expressed his frustration with the federal government’s “heavy-handed” crackdown on immigrant communities in the area and shared his sympathies with those in the wider Latino population who are living in fear as a result. “It hurts, because it’s all kind of different situations been going around, as far as immigration,” he began.

“To see people disrespected like that, and federal government just being too heavy-handed and disrespectful, going to churches and weddings and grabbing people out of those schools,” he continued. “It’s like, ‘Come on man, y’all just overdoing it.’”

Cube went on to theorize that the intention behind the raids isn’t just to deport people, but also to instill lasting terror in every Latinx person in the United States, regardless of their citizenship status. “Nobody’s safe, man,” the hip-hop star said. “They don’t care who they grab. It’s sad. They come in and disrespect everybody. They want to traumatize people, too.”

“It’s just sad, man,” he added. “I can’t wait ’til this period is over. I don’t know how we’re going to get to the end, but it’s crazy to see people dragged out of their spots of refuge.”

Billboard has reached out to the White House for comment.

The interview comes amid growing tensions in the L.A. area, which first erupted with protests against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts in June. They included deploying the National Guard to assist in ICE’s raids throughout the city. Cube is just the latest star to speak out about the issue, with Tyler, The Creator, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Joe Armstrong, Kehlani and countless other artists also slamming the government’s sweeps in recent months.

But despite a federal appeals court recently upholding a federal judge’s order that blocked the Trump administration from continuing the indiscriminate immigration arrests in the city, U.S. Border Patrol agents have still been proceeding with raids. Just one day before Cube’s interview, for instance, a group of them jumped out of the back of a rented truck and made arrests at a Home Depot in L.A., a mission one official called “Operation Trojan Horse,” according to the Associated Press.

Watch Ice Cube speak on the recent ICE raids on The Cruz Show below.