During a stop on her "Little Miss Drama Tour" at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, Calif., Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B made headlines with a controversial statement regarding United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After igniting the crowd with a Selena impression, she declared, "B—h! If ICE comes in here, we gon’ jump they a—es. I’ve got some bear mace in the back! They ain’t taking my fans, b—h," a remark that was met with applause.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded to Cardi B's comments on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, February 12th. The official DHS account posted, "As long as she doesn’t drug and rob our agents, we’ll consider that an improvement over her past behavior," accompanied by a link. This jab from Homeland Security directly referenced Cardi B's previous admissions about her past as a stripper.

Cardi B quickly fired back on X on Thursday afternoon, shifting the focus to the Jeffrey Epstein files. She tweeted, "If we talking about drugs let’s talk about Epstein and friends drugging underage girls to rape them. Why yall don’t wanna talk about the Epstein files?" referencing the serial rapist and pedophile who died by suicide in 2019.

The DHS's comment about Cardi B's "past behavior" alludes to a resurfaced 2016 video where the Bronx native openly discussed her experiences as a dancer in the 2010s. In the video, she admitted, "I had to go strip, I had to go, ‘Oh yeah, you want to f—k me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go back to this hotel,’ and I drugged n—as up, and I robbed them. That’s what I used to do."

In March 2019, Cardi B addressed the backlash from these admissions, clarifying her statements on social media. She wrote, "So I’m seeing on social media that a live I did 3 years ago has popped back up. A live where I talked about things I had to do in my past right or wrong that I felt I needed to do make a living… I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world wit a perfect past I always speak my truth — I always own my s—t." The rapper is scheduled to continue her "Little Miss Drama Tour" with upcoming shows in Las Vegas on Friday night, February 13th, and Los Angeles on Sunday, February 15th.