Who would imagine that an international sporting event will be the next battleground in the fight against authoritarian repression?
Yet that scenario is unfolding right now, and the battleground is the World Cup tournament—soon to begin in cities around the U.S. In the past year and a half, at least 46 people have died in ICE custody since Donald Trump took office.
Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, made clear that ICE will be present at World Cup venues. Mullin ruled out broad immigration sweeps but not individual apprehensions. At the same time, FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, has required stadium workers to disclose sensitive information (Social Security numbers, residential addresses, nationality and country of birth) and to allow the sharing of that information with federal authorities.
Some say that workers, vendors and visitors have nothing to fear if they’re here legally. But the argument is both specious and disingenuous. It denies the toxic power of racialized scapegoating that Donald Trump ratcheted up over the past 11 years.
At various points, he has declared that Mexico was sending us rapists, drugs and crime. He has made pronouncements about “sh-thole countries” like Haiti and African nations, about ways that unauthorized immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of Americans, and about Haitian immigrants stealing and consuming the pets of their citizen neighbors.
Such baseless claims have made many Americans more fearful of immigrants, and—along with rogue immigration enforcement— have frightened many migrants into the shadows or helped pushed them to self-deport.
Solidarity and discipline are needed now at the World Cup games. In Los Angeles, for example, there are about 2,000 unionized workers at SoFi Stadium, and they’ve begun to take action through their union, UNITE HERE Local 11. They’ve filed a complaint with California’s attorney general, citing an intrusion of their privacy and the violation of their rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act. They’ve also threatened to strike unless several demands are met, including assurances that ICE will have no place at the games.
Were ICE to be forced into retreat once again, that would indeed be a World Cup victory deserved by all.
Andrew Moss writes on politics, labor and nonviolence from Los Angeles. He is an emeritus professor (nonviolence studies, English) from the California State University.
