Zach Bryan Releases Song With Scathing Lyrics About ICE

Zach Bryan finally released his song “Bad News,” featuring scathing lyrics about law enforcement officers and ICE agents, days after a fatal shooting in Minneapolis. According to The Blast, Bryan had already made headlines in October 2025 when he teased a snippet of the song on his Instagram, including the lyrics, “My friends are all degenerates, but they’re all I got, the generational story of dropping the plot. I heard the cops came, cocky motherf-ckers, ain’t they?” He continued on the track, “And ICE is gonna come bust down your door, try to build a house no one builds no more, but I got a telephone, kids are all scared and all alone.” In the extended version of the song, Bryan laments the current state of America before calling for unity.

In the full three-minute version of the song, Bryan adds, “My friends are all degenerates, they’re all I got / Every day on the news, someone else is shot / I got some bad news / The fading of the red, white and blue.” Continuing, the singer reminds listeners that “this land’s your land” and “this land [is] mine too.”

Bryan initially faced backlash over the lyrics of his new track. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem slammed the singer during an earlier appearance, saying, “To every single individual that has ever stood up and fought for our freedoms, he just compromised it all by putting out a product such as that, that attacks individuals who are just trying to make our streets safe.”

She continued, “So, Zach, I didn’t listen to your music. I’m happy about that today. Today, that makes me very happy, that I never once gave you a single penny to enrich your lifestyle if you truly believe what that song stands for,” before promoting singers like Jason Aldean and John Rich.

When Bryan first teased the release of his single, it was amid sweeping ICE raids across America. Today, the world is in an even more heightened state than before, as an ICE agent fatally shot a woman on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, while conducting an immigration operation in Minneapolis.

According to a report from The Blast, the woman, identified as Renee Good, was an American citizen and was not the target of the operation. Despite that, reports and videos confirmed that Good became involved in an altercation with an ICE agent who opened fire after claiming Good tried to hit them with her car.

The Minneapolis Police Chief had expressed concern about ICE’s presence in Minnesota a day before the shooting. “I’ve been concerned for weeks that because the issue is so emotional, because, frankly, some of the way this stuff has been carried out, the greatest risk to me is that there would be unrest or that there would be a tragedy,” he said. “That somebody could get seriously hurt or killed because of what’s happening.”

The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, demanded of ICE during his press conference: “Get the f-ck out of Minneapolis.”

A-list celebrities reacted sharply to the fatal shooting of Good. “Barbie” star Simu Liu stated that he was “beyond appalled at the murderous actions of ICE agents” on X, while Amanda Seyfried reposted the viral clip of Mayor Frey rejecting ICE’s presence in the state.

Cynthia Nixon shared multiple statements on her Instagram Stories, including “Abolish ICE!!!” and calling for the arrest of “ALL … ICE agents who blocked her medical care.”

Grammy Award-winning singer Billie Eilish also weighed in with official reposts to her Instagram, labeling ICE a “federally funded and supported terrorist group.” Another reshared post featured the names of 32 individuals who reportedly died in ICE custody in 2025.

In the summer of 2025, Eilish’s brother, Finneas, revealed that he had been tear-gassed at a “very peaceful protest” in downtown Los Angeles. “They’re inciting this,” he added.