Bruce Springsteen has dedicated a song to the people of Minneapolis, criticising US President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration enforcement operations in the city.

The lyrics of Streets of Minneapolis, released on Wednesday (US time), describe how “a city aflame fought fire and ice ‘neath an occupier’s boots”, which Springsteen calls “King Trump’s private army”.

In a statement, Springsteen said he wrote and recorded the song last weekend and released it in response to the second deadly shooting by US federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

“It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbours, and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” he wrote, naming the two victims.

Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was shot by ICE agents last Saturday, two weeks after local mum Good, also 37, was also fatally shot.

Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino has since left Minneapolis amid backlash to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown. Federal officers involved in Pretti’s fatal shooting have been put on administrative leave.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with a foul-smelling liquid as she spoke in Minneapolis to condemn the ​actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minnesota.

Omar, a frequent target of Trump insults. The man accused of attacking her was wrestled to the ground and has since been charged.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, dismissed Springsteen’s song and defended the administration’s immigration crackdown.

“The Trump administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities – not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information,” she said.

The slow-burning song builds from just acoustic guitar and voice to a fuller band tune, including a harmonica solo, and ends with chants of “ICE Out!”

“Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice,” The Boss sings in the track, released on Wednesday.

“Singing through the bloody mist/We’ll take our stand for this land/And the stranger in our midst.”

The title echoes Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia, the title song for the Tom Hanks-led 1993 film Philadelphia.

Springsteen has long been critical of Trump, who in turn has called the rock icon “overrated”.

They last publicly clashed in 2025, when Springsteen on tour in England told his audience that the US was “in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration”.

Trump responded by calling Springsteen a “dried-out prune of a rocker”.

-with AAP