Kali Uchis wore a white corset with sparkling pink lettering reading "F--k ICE" while headlining the Hinterland Music Festival in St. Charles, Iowa, on Sunday, August 2, 2026.

ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is the agency within the US Department of Homeland Security responsible for interior immigration enforcement, including arrests, detentions and deportations.

A fan-captured Instagram reel documented the moment: Uchis swept her hair off her shoulders to display the top and announced to the crowd, "It says 'F--k ICE.'" Billboard reported the moment on August 3, 2026.

Hinterland ran across four days, from July 30 to August 2, 2026, with Uchis's headline set scheduled for 9:30 pm on the closing Sunday. Puerto Rican artist Young Miko also performed on the festival's final day. Hinterland's official website listed both artists on the bill. Uchis's own store page listed tickets for the August 2 date at $45.

The appearance was part of a busy weekend for Uchis, who also performed at HARD Summer in Los Angeles during the same early-August stretch.

Billboard said it reached out to Uchis's team and the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the shirt. Neither response had been made public at the time of reporting.

This was not an isolated statement. Uchis has spoken about immigration repeatedly across the past year. During her 2025 Sincerely, Tour, she incorporated an interlude displaying messages including "Immigrants built this country" and "Without immigrants, there is no America." At a Dallas show in August 2025, she repeated the latter phrase to the audience. At Camp Flog Gnaw in November 2025, she told the crowd, "ICE is terrorizing our community" and "they need to be sentenced for their violations against human rights."

The issue is personal for Uchis. In June 2025, she posted on Instagram about her father, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia as an adult with a fourth-grade education, having lived on the streets as a child. In a 2019 Rolling Stone interview ahead of her participation in the Selena for Sanctuary concert — a benefit event advocating for immigrant rights — Uchis said, "Tearing families apart isn't right, and ICE raids are inhumane."

For Uchis, the Hinterland moment joins a now-multi-year pattern of folding political messaging into her live performances, from tour interludes to festival-stage declarations. The corset puts that message on the artist's body rather than a screen, in front of a paying crowd at a general-admission festival in the American Midwest.