Pop stars sign petition calling for ICE detention center closure

We’re only three months into the year, but we’ve already seen a lot of musicians take a stand against the Trump administration: Kesha told the White House to “Stop using my music, perverts” earlier this month; Charley Crockett called the president “a grifter who bankrupted 6 casinos” with no discernible skills save for “filing lawsuits” in early February; Turnstile used their Grammy speech to speak out against “heightened state violence”; Neil Young gave his whole discography to Greenland for free as a protest against Trump’s bizarre obsession with annexing the country; Bruce Springsteen condemned ICE’s “gestapo tactics” at a show in January. 

Now, a petition calling for the “immediate closure” of an ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas, that took over 2,000 children into custody in 2025 (and nearly 600 were held “without enough food, medical care, or mental health services,” according to the Associated Press), has cropped up on Change.org. It comes as no surprise that a horde of artists have already signed their names.

The open letter, which currently has 18,000 signatures and counting, demands “an end to the detention of children and families” alongside “transparency, accountability, and systemic reforms to prevent these abuses from happening anywhere in the United States.” Musicians across genres and eras have joined that number: John Legend, Madonna, Kesha, Brandi Carlile, Gracie Abrams, the Indigo Girls, Sara Bareilles, King Princess, MUNA, and more have voiced their support. They’re far from the only famous names appearing on the signature list, however; actors like Ayo Edebiri, Keke Palmer, Elliot Page, Pedro Pascal, and Jane Fonda all appear as well.

The petition reads:

“No child should be locked in an immigration detention center. We, the undersigned, call for the immediate closure of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) family detention center in Texas and an end to the detention of children and families. Children held in immigration detention endure trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights. The harms of detaining children are known and well documented. Court filings of abuse against children have included refusals to provide clean water, rotten food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal counsel, the separation of children from their families, and retaliation against families protesting the inhumane conditions. Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers. We urge the federal government and CoreCivic to close the Dilley facility immediately, return children and families to the homes and communities they were taken from and to end child imprisonment now.”

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