Billions of people around the world will be watching the 2026 World Cup, which begins on June 11 with a majority of the games hosted in the United States. And no one is as responsible for bringing the World Cup to the United States as U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has been eager to claim credit, and while he may not be particularly keen on the sport itself, he seems to genuinely respect the global attention that the sport and its athletes draw. (He especially seemed to enjoy hanging out with Chelsea after the British team won this year’s Club World Cup tournament—before he effectively stole their championship trophy, which now rests in the Oval Office at the White House.)
Yet as much as Trump may be looking forward to the World Cup, the policies of his own administration are putting the event’s usual pageantry and celebrations at risk. Posing the greatest danger to Trump’s World Cup is his insistence on allowing widespread immigration raids that target entire immigrant communities and those who look like them.
Billions of people around the world will be watching the 2026 World Cup, which begins on June 11 with a majority of the games hosted in the United States. And no one is as responsible for bringing the World Cup to the United States as U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has been eager to claim credit, and while he may not be particularly keen on the sport itself, he seems to genuinely respect the global attention that the sport and its athletes draw. (He especially seemed to enjoy hanging out with Chelsea after the British team won this year’s Club World Cup tournament—before he effectively stole their championship trophy, which now rests in the Oval Office at the White House.)
Yet as much as Trump may be looking forward to the World Cup, the policies of his own administration are putting the event’s usual pageantry and celebrations at risk. Posing the greatest danger to Trump’s World Cup is his insistence on allowing widespread immigration raids that target entire immigrant communities and those who look like them.
These raids have been deliberately concentrated in many of the blue cities that are slated to host the World Cup, and they provoke significant protests, civil disobedience, and public disturbances, as was seen most dramatically in Los Angeles this past summer. It has been a vicious feedback loop. Overreach by immigration enforcement officials inevitably triggers resistance in cities where Trump enjoyed little electoral support in the first place. That resistance in turn fuels efforts by the Trump administration to crack down harder, escalate anti-immigrant rhetoric, and even deploy military resources against U.S. communities.
Meanwhile, people of Latin American origin, including U.S. citizens, have been made to feel unsafe while going about their daily lives. Shocking stories of even U.S. citizens of Latin heritage being stopped or even detained have created a chilling effect across the country. The fear has proved devastating for many of the small businesses and neighborhoods that rely on and serve the United States’ large Latin American diaspora—undocumented, naturalized, and U.S.-born alike. These are precisely the communities, and businesses, that would get the most excited about the World Cup. Any Mexico game should be a good business day in downtown Los Angeles or Chicago’s Little Village, but not if the U.S. Border Patrol is sweeping through and asking every person with Brown skin or who speaks Spanish for papers.
Indeed, a friendly soccer match this year between Argentina and Puerto Rico was moved from Chicago to Florida because of the immigration crackdown that Latin Americans in Chicago have been subjected to. Moving a game from Chicago to Florida might sound like exactly the kind of thing that Trump might want to accomplish. Yet Latin Americans are no safer in Florida. There has already been at least one documented case of a tourist visa holder—a Mexican national who was stopped by police while driving—visiting Florida and ending up detained in “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Another traffic stop led to the horrific imprisonment of a dual Italian-Argentine citizen who had already made plans to voluntarily leave the country. With local law enforcement deputized for immigration enforcement in states like Florida and Texas, even a routine interaction with authorities—after getting too rowdy at a bar while celebrating your team scoring, for example—poses a risk for a noncitizen, who could then be detained in genuinely atrocious and life-threatening conditions. Indeed, this has already happened to immigrants with legal status, including tourist visas. How can the governments of soccer-loving nations like Mexico, Italy, and Argentina guarantee their citizens will be safe at the World Cup should they acquire a ticket?
There is even a real risk that World Cup games themselves will be used as traps. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments about the Super Bowl, suggesting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would be present due to the halftime performance by Latin pop star Bad Bunny (a U.S. citizen, as all Puerto Ricans are), point to the very ugly possibility that World Cup matches, especially those featuring Latin American teams, will be seen as opportunities for immigration raids.
Major sporting events are already coexisting uneasily with Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mexico played the Dominican Republic in California this past June amid the height of the immigration crackdown there. Such was the unease about possible law enforcement targeting fans that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly urged U.S. authorities to leave game attendees alone. The Mexican national team itself had to move hotels amid clashes between protesters and federal immigration agents. Similar scenes and diplomatic incidents could easily occur across the United States next summer.
If Trump wants to ensure that his World Cup is not marred by ugly scenes of his own government brutalizing, terrorizing, and racially profiling many who simply wish to join the soccer party he is hosting, then he must take action. Addressing valid concerns that many international fans will not be able to obtain U.S. visas in time to attend the games, the Trump administration has already made a significant concession in the form of the FIFA Pass. This indicates a pragmatic desire to prioritize the World Cup’s success over the wishes of immigration hardliners. To ensure a safe World Cup for all fans in attendance, Trump must also ensure that immigration enforcement raids are paused, or at least significantly wound down and conducted only in a targeted and lawful manner, for the duration of the event.
FIFA must join the push for such a raid moratorium, even if only behind the scenes. FIFA is not generally concerned for human rights. Yet it does need to be able to ensure that its core business—entertaining fans from around the world—is not disrupted by the governments of host countries. In the run-up to their World Cups, both Russia and Qatar took notable steps to reassure international critics, particularly in the area of fan safety. Russia, for example, cracked down on its own violent and racist football hooligan scene, while even making concessions on LGBTQ issues, including sending signals that LGBTQ fans from Western countries would not be subject to Russia’s infamous anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself celebrated that the many fears about fan safety generally did not come to pass, remarking, “People have seen that Russia is a hospitable country, a friendly one for those who come here.”
Qatar made similar concessions around LGBTQ issues and also took steps to address critiques of its atrocious treatment of migrant workers, which had become the subject of global criticism. To be sure, few of these improvements proved long-lasting in Qatar, and even less so in Russia. Yet to ensure a successful and safe World Cup, Trump should follow Russia and Qatar’s lead and provide public assurances that there will not be large-scale immigration raids in the cities hosting World Cup games for the duration of the tournament.
The idea of easing up a little, if only temporarily, will no doubt anger some of Trump’s inner circle. Early signs for any sort of moderation are quite grim. The recent announcement of an expanded travel ban impacting all citizens of 19 countries—including World Cup-qualified Haiti and Iran—bodes especially poorly.
And yet, as billions of fans around the world can attest, there is nothing trivial about the World Cup. Global leaders would not try so hard to host and control it otherwise. Nor would millions of the world’s most poor and marginalized people, from children amid war ruins in Gaza and Ukraine to immigrant workers across U.S. cities, care so much about the games and their outcome.
At its best, the World Cup is a unique chance for the world to come together and celebrate the beautiful sport that unites so many of us. One can only hope that the world can watch the 2026 World Cup without worrying about interruptions caused by ICE. A pause on violent immigration raids might even merit the FIFA Peace Prize.
