Danny Trejo Breaks Silence: ‘I’m Not Pro-ICE’ After Backlash Over Ben Shapiro’s ‘Pawn Shop’ Movie

Danny Trejo has heard your questions. And he’s got an answer.

After days of backlash from fans who couldn’t quite figure out why the beloved tough-guy actor was appearing in Ben Shapiro’s controversial new movie about immigration enforcement, the 82-year-old star has finally broken his silence — and he’s making one thing crystal clear: “I am not pro-ICE.”

In his first public remarks about *Pawn Shop*, the Daily Wire-produced film that has stirred up a hornet’s nest of criticism since cameras started rolling, Trejo told TMZ exactly where he stands.

“I am a proud Mexican who has always been and will always be a supporter of my community,” Trejo said. “I am also obviously pro immigrant. I am not pro ice.”

Short, direct, and about as unambiguous as it gets.

“I know where I come from and I know our struggles,” he added. “I am an actor. My job is to tell a story.”

Why Fans Were So Confused

Look, it’s not hard to see why this one threw people.

Shapiro himself has said the film is pro-ICE, and the movie — produced by Shapiro’s conservative media company the Daily Wire alongside Bonfire Legend — follows a young federal agent who takes shelter inside a Minneapolis pawn shop amid unrest over immigration enforcement. Critics have noted that leaked details of the script echo the real-life fatal shooting of Renée Good, a Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE officer in January, a case that sparked national outrage.

So when fans learned that Trejo — a man whose entire public persona has been built on being the proud, street-hardened Mexican-American who clawed his way out of the system — had signed on, the questions came fast.

TMZ previously obtained video from the set in Livingston, Montana, where the film has been shooting since late September, showing the production filming a scene that appears to re-create Good’s fatal shooting. Filming there hit a speed bump earlier this month: after local residents complained, the city commission paused the film’s permit on October 3, then voted unanimously two days later to restore it with conditions. Cameras are set to keep rolling through Saturday.

Harvey Keitel is also in the mix, playing a down-on-his-luck veteran whom Trejo’s character hires as a security guard for the shop. According to production sources, Trejo plays the pawn shop’s owner — a man whose family has run the business for generations and who’s also a military veteran.

And that’s apparently the part that hooked him.

One production source told TMZ that Trejo said he was attracted to the role because it’s a positive depiction of a Latino character and a veteran. Which, if you’ve followed Trejo’s career at all, tracks perfectly. The man has spent four decades playing characters with dignity — even the ones holding machetes.

We’re told the film’s chaos kicks off when ICE agents show up in the pawn shop’s parking lot, and the violence in the script is “ripped from the headlines” about the shootings of Good and Alex Pretti. Sources say Trejo viewed the project as a reflection of what’s going on in America right now — not an endorsement of anyone’s politics, just a mirror held up to a messy moment.

His reps had no further comment beyond his statement. Honestly, he said enough.

A Career Built on Second Chances

Here’s the thing about Danny Trejo: nobody in Hollywood has a backstory quite like his.

Born in Echo Park, Los Angeles, in 1944, Trejo spent much of his youth in and out of trouble. By his own telling, he cycled through the California prison system through the 1960s, serving time in some of the state’s toughest facilities, including San Quentin. He spent 11 years behind bars. Boxing became his lifeline inside — he became the lightweight and welterweight champion of San Quentin’s prison boxing program, a detail that sounds like movie fiction but isn’t.

He got out in 1969 and never went back. He became a drug counselor, working with recovering addicts in Los Angeles, and it was that work that accidentally launched his acting career. In 1985, he visited the set of *Runaway Train* to help a young actor struggling with cocaine addiction, and director Andrei Konchalovsky offered him a job on the spot — first as an extra, then as Eric Roberts’ boxing trainer for the film’s fight scenes. He was paid $320 a day. The rest, as they say, is history.

What followed was one of the most improbable careers in Hollywood. Trejo became the go-to heavy: *Desperado*, *From Dusk Till Dawn*, *Con Air*, *Heat*. Robert Rodriguez turned him into a leading man with *Machete* in 2010, spinning the character out of a fake trailer in *Grindhouse*. Kids know him as Uncle Machete from the *Spy Kids* movies. TV fans remember him from *Breaking Bad* and *Sons of Anarchy*.

Through it all, he’s been remarkably open about his past — the addiction, the prison time, the fact that he was supposed to die in San Quentin. His 2021 memoir *Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood* laid it all bare. He’s built a whole second act as an entrepreneur too, with Trejo’s Tacos restaurants and Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts in Los Angeles.

And politically? He’s never hidden where he stands. In 2025, he publicly told families hit by ICE raids to “keep up hope.” Before this week’s statement, writer Anna Ortega noted that his participation in the film alone didn’t establish his views on ICE. She was right — and now Trejo has said it himself.

The Daily Wire’s Hollywood Play

*Pawn Shop* is the latest swing in the Daily Wire’s ongoing bid to become a player in entertainment. Shapiro co-founded the conservative media company, which has been pouring money into film and TV projects as part of a broader culture-war strategy — making movies for audiences it believes Hollywood ignores.

The company’s productions have a habit of generating controversy before a single frame is released, and *Pawn Shop* is no exception. The decision to film scenes echoing a real, recent fatal shooting by an ICE officer was always going to draw fire. That Trejo — a Latino icon — is at the center of it only turned the volume up.

It’s worth remembering that actors take roles in politically charged projects all the time without endorsing the politics. Trejo’s explanation is the oldest one in the book, and honestly, one of the most honest: he’s an actor, the part was good, the character had dignity, and his job is to tell stories.

Whether fans buy it is another question. The backlash was real, and it was loud. Trejo’s statement reads like a man who heard it and decided to settle the matter himself rather than let his reps spin it.

What Happens Next

Filming in Livingston wraps up this weekend, and then the long road to release begins. The Daily Wire hasn’t announced a release date for *Pawn Shop*, but given the company’s distribution model, expect a theatrical push followed by a streaming run on its own platform.

Trejo, meanwhile, isn’t slowing down. At 82, he’s still working at a pace that would exhaust actors half his age. This controversy will blow over — it always does — but his statement will stick around, because it was personal.

“I am a proud Mexican who has always been and will always be a supporter of my community.”

That’s not a press release. That’s Danny Trejo telling you who he is, the same way he’s been telling you for forty years: a kid from Echo Park who survived San Quentin, got clean, and built a life out of second chances.

A role is a role. The man is the man. And on this one, he’s made himself perfectly clear.

Source: TMZ