“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, the FIFA World Cup 2026 will be one of the greatest and most spectacular events in the history of mankind, right here in the United States of America,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to Al Jazeera last week.
“This event will generate billions of dollars of economic impact and bring hundreds of thousands of jobs to our country. The President is focused on making this the greatest World Cup ever while ensuring it is the safest and most secure in history.”
A lot of Americans and international fans aren’t so sure. Set aside the overblown “history of mankind” rhetoric as the kind of bluster that’s simply the cost of doing business with this administration. Soccer fans around the world who would normally travel to support their countries’ teams at the World Cup are thinking twice about doing that in a country that has been so openly and often haphazardly hostile to visitors from other countries. Do they want to risk being detained and deported by members of ICE that have generally prioritized moving quickly and traumatically over accuracy and justice?
Countries that will send teams to the World Cup and civic leaders in cities that will host games have had their concerns about ICE ignored, or they don’t phase acting DHS director Todd Lyons. “ICE, specifically Homeland Security Investigations, is a key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup,” he said. “We’re dedicated to securing that operation, and we’re dedicated to the security of all our participants as well as visitors.”
Some countries are directly affected. Iran qualified for the World Cup, and ICE doesn’t pose a specific threat to it, but since the U.S. is at war with it, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to The World Cup, but I really don't believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety.” At this point, Iran still plans to participate in the tournament, but that kind of not-so-veiled threat may discourage the team’s fans from traveling to see it play. Haiti, Iran, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire qualified for the World Cup as well, but a December 2025 travel ban means their fans won’t be able to attend games in the U.S. to support them.
What has passed for ICE’s version of security has concerned fans from countries that can travel to the U.S. CNN’s Vivian Song interviewed soccer fans who have chosen to see World Cup matches in Canada and Mexico but not the U.S. One biracial German fan who saw the World Cup in South Africa and Brazil decided to pass on the U.S., concerned that the fact that he looks more Korean than German would be a problem.
“I wouldn’t feel safe,” he said.
The history of racial profiling by ICE under the current administration prompted a Canadian fan to skip games they had planned to see in the U.S. “People who are brown-skinned like myself, that’s an extra risk. What happens if you disappear for two weeks? It’s not something that is worth the risk.”
A British fan who also attended a number of World Cups in the past found the government’s response to ICE’s violence to be the last straw. The killing of Renee Goode was bad enough, but the efforts to rationalize the shooting made him feel unsafe.
“The contortions the government went through to deny it and insinuate that she was some kind of terrorist, I thought, well, they could call me a terrorist and shoot me,” Peter Holmes said. “I was just sickened, absolutely sickened.”
Countries with teams going to the World Cup have privately put pressure on FIFA president Gianni Infantino to try to get the current administration to take steps to reduce the threat to visitors from foreign countries during the World Cup. According to reports, Infantino plans to go directly to Trump to ask for some assurances to restore confidence in international soccer fans, including a “full moratorium on ICE raids across the United States during the World Cup this summer.”
All of this uncertainty has prompted host cities that once foresaw tourism booms during the World Cup to temper their expectations. In 2018, the idea of a World Cup with matches hosted around North America seemed promising, but the current administration’s general suspicion toward people from other countries led to a 5.5 percent decline in visitors from 2024. Experts estimate that the World Cup will only increase that by between 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent—maybe 742,000 visitors.
Hotels that surged their room rates in anticipation of the World Cup demand have scaled down significantly to an average of $579 a night from $1,034 four months ago.
ICE’s toxic reputation has also created possible labor issues for SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, which will host two of Team U.S.A.’s matches. A union representing 2,000 cooks, servers and bartenders at SoFi has asked FIFA to make sure that ICE has no presence at the stadium, concerned that members may be detained on their way to or from work.
“We have seen that ICE has launched a campaign of terror on our communities,” union co-president Kurt Petersen told Politico. “So, we’re asking that FIFA actually live up to its ideals of a sports event that is free from politics — and tell the government to get ICE out of the World Cup so that guests and workers can be safe during these games.”
As a result of ICE’s reputation and, to be fair, the cost of tickets, seats were still available for all 104 matches as of April 22.
The bottom line is that this administration’s threatening posture toward people from other countries has yet again turned possibilities into problems and made doing business in the U.S. and with the U.S. more fraught than ever.
Photo by My Profit Tutor on Unsplash.
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