Super Bowl 2020: Jennifer Lopez and Shakira Made a Subtle Statement About the Border Crisis During Halftime Show

Shakira and Jennifer Lopez put on a raucous show at the Super Bowl LIV halftime show, but they slipped in a subtle commentary on the United States’ immigration crisis as well. Many fans may have missed it, but there were distinct nods to the detention centers along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the children being held there. Lopez’s own daughter played a part.

Fans went wild when Lopez’s 11-year-old daughter, Emme Maribell Muñiz joined her on stage. So wild, in fact, that many did not even notice how she made her entrance — in an abstract cage. Emme crawled out of the small metal bars before joining her mother in song.

Younger dancers worked within even more abstract renditions of cages out on the field. Around the stage, they danced in illuminated metal rings, moving around them but always trapped in their orbit. When Emme began singing, they were all freed.

The young dancers then joined Emme on the stage, forming a choir to back her up. They all wore white sweatshirts with the American flag depicted in rhinestones across the front. The empowering force of this child chorus had Twitter roaring in approval.

“I saw it. Did you? Putting kids in cages to ‘Let’s Get Loud.’ JLO and Shakira. Well played. Bravo,” one person tweeted.

“Powerful commentary on the border crisis by J-Lo having kids in cages,” added another.

“We got too emotional our Latinidad in this performance, we are overlooking [Shakira] and [J. Lo’s] political message: We still have kids in cages. Watch again,” a third person wrote.

Lopez and Shakira had both previously promised that Latino and Latin-American fans would see a lot of empowering messages in their performances. In an interview with CBS This Morning, Lopez said that they would split the difference between crowd-pleasers and more specific hits.

“It’s in Miami, and we’re both Latin artists, we bring that flavor, and that’s going to be exciting and a new thing that hasn’t been on any other Super Bowl,” she said.

Meanwhile, Shakira told Entertainment Weekly that she was thinking hard about representation in her show.

“This time, it’s representing the Latinos who have struggled so much in the U.S. and who I think are going to find an important space now, feeling represented on that very important stage,” she said.

According to a report by NBC News late last year, over 5,400 children were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border after the Trump administration’s new immigration policies took effect in 2017. A federal judge ordered the government to reunite those children with their parents the following year, yet issues with the government’s bookkeeping has kept many of those families apart ever since.

“It is shocking that 1,556 more families, including babies and toddlers, join the thousands of others already torn apart by this inhumane and illegal policy,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt. “Families have suffered tremendously, and some may never recover.”