Bruce Springsteen Condemns ‘Inhumane’ Migrant Family Separation

Bruce Springsteen veered from his scripted Broadway one-man-show on Tuesday to denounce the Trump administration’s “inhumane” immigration policy of separating thousands of children from their parents.

The singer-songwriter is eight months into his Tony Award-winning residency at New York’s Walter Kerr Theatre, but he broke the normal format to critique “senior people in government” who have cited a legal obligation to take over 2,000 children from their parents.

“For 146 shows, I have played pretty much the same set every night,” he told the sold-out crowd, The Guardian reports. “Tonight demands something different.” Springsteen followed by playing his 1995 protest song “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” which alludes to poverty and homelessness.

Bruce’s remarks before he performed “The Ghost of Tom Joad” last night on Broadway. Swipe through ➡️➡️➡️

A post shared by Bruce Springsteen (@springsteen) on Jun 20, 2018 at 10:54am PDT

In May, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instituted a policy calling for all immigrants crossing the Mexican border illegally to be prosecuted. Both President Trump and White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders have cited the move as upholding a Democrat-created law, and both Sessions and Sanders have pointed to the Bible as a defense.

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder also spoke out against the border policy during the band’s show Monday night in London, Billboard reports. The singer dedicated the song “Love Boat Captain” to “the guy who is in the White House back in the United States,” noting, “I would like him to hear it, but he doesn’t listen to music or read books. Could someone twee this to him or something? For moms and dads and children being separated at the border. That isn’t the country I remember.”