Logic and Ryan Tedder brought out hundreds of immigrant children and reunited them with their families during their MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) performance on Monday to protest the Trump administration’s border policies.
Joined on stage by participants from the activist groups National Domestic Workers Alliance, United We Dream and Make the Road New York, the rapper wore a shirt emblazoned with the phrase “f– the wall” for the politically-charged performance of his latest single “One Day.”
Toward the end of the song, a wall at the back of the stage was raised and dozens more children wearing “we are all human beings” shirts were “reunited” with the others already on stage, a reference to the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We are still in a moment of crisis. Hundreds of children have been taken away from their parents by the Trump administration and locked up in detention away from their families,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, a leader of the Families Belong Together Coalition and political director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “We’re calling for accountability. Join us in the fight to reunite every family that’s been torn apart by this administration.”
The performance followed a music video for the song released last week, which also tackled the immigration issue. Directed by Andy Hines, the seven-minute video contrasted the lives of a Mexican family at the border with a white family living a happy life in California.