Lady Gaga Uses Tokyo Stage to Bash ICE (Video)

Lady Gaga brought her Monster Ball tour to Japan — and then stopped the music to unload on what she called the new wave of “fear-driven cruelty” happening back home under President Trump’s second-term immigration crackdowns.

Speaking to more than 50,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome, Gaga delivered an emotional and unusually pointed speech about the recent deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis, calling the incident “a breaking point for America’s conscience.”

The comments were aimed squarely at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the president overseeing it — Donald Trump.

Gaga paused mid-show, telling the crowd she couldn’t stay silent while families in the U.S. lived “in terror of the very government sworn to protect them.”

Lady Gaga condemns ICE in heartfelt speech at the MAYHEM Ball in Tokyo tonight:

"I want to take a second to talk about something that’s extremely important to me. Something important to people all over the world and especially in America right now. In a couple of days, I'm gonna… pic.twitter.com/UmfXmZIKPy

— Gaga Daily (@gagadaily) January 29, 2026

“My heart is aching thinking about the children, the families, the communities being mercilessly targeted,” she said. “Their lives are being torn apart right in front of us. And everyone back home — especially in Minnesota — is living in fear and searching for answers.”

She went on to describe the ICE tactics seen over the last year as “a national trauma we’re all being forced to witness.”

“I hope our leaders are listening,” she added. “I hope they hear us begging them to change course. Good people shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to feel safe in their own homes.”

Her comments come days after a Minneapolis demonstration turned deadly, fueling nationwide outrage. According to investigators, two protesters were killed during a chaotic clash involving federal agents. The Biden-era restrictions on force were dissolved early in Trump’s second term, giving immigration officers broader latitude during operations.

Civil rights groups say those changes created “predictable catastrophe.” Activists on the ground told reporters the crowd had been peaceful before the escalation.

One organizer described the aftermath as “a scene we thought we’d moved past as a country.”

Hours before Gaga’s Tokyo speech, ICE’s acting director Tom Homan announced a new directive telling agents not to “engage with agitators,” insisting the agency will now concentrate on immigrants with criminal charges — a return, he claimed, to Trump’s original 2016 promise.

But immigration attorneys note that the directive changes little on the ground. “This is cosmetic,” one lawyer said. “Families are still being torn apart, and communities are still terrified.”

Gaga’s remarks captured that sentiment, telling the audience, “When entire communities lose their sense of safety and belonging, it breaks something in all of us.”

Before singing her track “Come to Mama,” the star dedicated the performance to “everyone who feels alone, helpless or afraid in America right now.”

“I know we’re far from home tonight,” she said, “but love doesn’t stop at borders, and neither should mercy.”

Celebrities including Edward Norton, Olivia Wilde, Zoey Deutch, and Natalie Portman have all spoken out in the past week. Bruce Springsteen even dropped a protest single referencing the Minneapolis tragedy, igniting further conversation about federal force in the Trump era.

Gaga is currently nominated for seven Grammys, including album of the year for MAYHEM and song of the year for “Abracadabra.” Industry insiders say her speech is likely to echo throughout the awards weekend — especially as more artists publicly challenge Trump’s expanding enforcement powers.

A music executive summed it up: “Gaga didn’t just make a statement. She lit a fuse.”