ELOY, Ariz. — Colombian musician Juanes and singer John Legend met immigrants at a jail in Arizona on Wednesday before performing for a small crowd outside the facility to draw attention to immigration and mass incarceration.
The Grammy winners each played two songs separately and one together — Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” — as dozens of people sang along in Eloy, about 60 miles southeast of Phoenix.
“The reason why we’re here, one, is because we want to bear witness to what’s happening so we could tell the world about it,” Legend said to the cheering crowd.
Juanes played the guitar and Legend the piano atop a flatbed truck parked across the street from the federal detention center. An empty desert field served as the backdrop while people in the crowd held large signs and chanted “Not one more deportation” and “Si se puede,” meaning “Yes we can.”