Spotify have confirmed that a controversial ICE recruitment advertisement campaign on their platform has ended.
The streamer was widely criticised for running recruitment ads for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late 2025 as part of President Donald Trump administration’s $30 billion investment in hiring at least 10,000 more deportation officers by the end of the year.
ICE is partially responsible for carrying out Trump’s policy for the mass detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants. There have been multiple reports of abuse and mistreatment of detainees in ICE facilities, including of pregnant women and children (via The Guardian). US Senator Jon Ossoff’s office have also published data showing “at least 510 instances” of physical and sexual abuse.
This led to calls to boycott the platform, amplified by the Spotify Unwrapped campaign which also criticised its proliferation of AI music.
In October, a spokesperson for Spotify said the ads were compliant with the US advertising policy and stressed that they are “part of a broad campaign the US government is running across television, streaming and online channels”.
The advert includes the quote: “You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe. But in sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free.”
Spotify has since confirmed that the ads had stopped running on the platform in late 2025, following concerns relating to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday (January 7).
Spotify confirms that they are no longer running ICE recruitment ads.
Last October, the company faced backlash for running ICE recruitment ads after receiving $74,000 from the Department of Homeland Security to promote the Trump’s plan to hire 10,000 new deportation officers by… pic.twitter.com/4M7l4HGg0K
— Variety (@Variety) January 8, 2026
Good, a prize winning poet with a wife and three children, was killed during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation. She was a volunteer in a network of “neighbourhood patrols” keeping track of ICE operations in Minneapolis and was shot in her car by a federal agent.
“There are currently no ICE ads running on Spotify,” a Spotify spokesperson told Variety. “The advertisements mentioned were part of a U.S. government recruitment campaign that ran across all major media and platforms.”
Good’s death has led to a wave of protests against ICE in Minneapolis and across the ICE. Meanwhile, a fundraiser for her family has raised over $1.5million.
Many artists have spoken out against ICE in recent months, including Bad Bunny, who witnessed an ICE raid in Puerto Rico in June and later declared his world tour would not hit the United States as he was afraid of ICE agents raiding the shows.
Olivia Rodrigo, Addison Rae and Shakira are among other artists to voice their opposition to ICE’s actions, and the agency was recently forced to take down a propaganda video that was soundtracked by The Cure’s ‘Friday I’m In Love’.
Hundreds of artists have also joined a campaign calling for the abolition of ICE amid widespread protests against the agency, while Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello also shared a ‘Fuck ICE’ playlist, which you can check out here.
More recently, Joe Keery called out Trump for defending ICE and describing Good as “a professional agitator”. Writing on his Instagram, Keery said: “Zero human decency. Stop this man”.
In other news, Spotify recently spoken out against a “nefarious” activist piracy group that has scraped the library of the streaming service.
