When Sports and U.S. Immigration Policy Collide

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies. If you notice an error, feel free to email [email protected].

CHAPTERS 

03:07 Immigration Enforcement and the FIFA 2026 World Cup
05:27 Travel Bans and the Case of Iran and Other Affected Nations
08:05 Co-Hosting Complications: U.S., Mexico, and Canada
11:07 Visa Barriers and Access Gaps for Global South Fans
15:00 ICE Enforcement Near Stadiums
18:10 Activism, Protest, and the World Cup as a Political Platform
21:34 Lessons for the 2028 LA Olympics
 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:03.010] 

Hi, welcome to The World of Migration, a podcast from Migration Policy Institute that delves into interesting and important developments globally on immigration, immigrant integration, and humanitarian protection. My name is Ariel Ruiz Soto. I'm a senior policy analyst at MPI, and I will be your host for today. Branded as the largest and most inclusive World Cup in history, the FIFA 2026 World Cup is the first hosted by 3 countries: United States, Mexico, and Canada, featuring a record 48 national teams and 104 matches played across 16 cities in 3 countries over the span of 39 days. 78 of these matches, including the final, will be played in the United States, where an array of immigration policy changes implemented by the Trump administration may fundamentally shape how fans experience the most watched sporting event on the planet. Hosting the World Cup has always been political and drawn criticism. With the Trump administration's heightened focus on visa restrictions and mass deportations against the backdrop of tense global relations raises the stakes for the U.S. government, host cities, the participating teams, and of course, the fans. Some are fearful that ICE and other law enforcement, in particular in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, will carry out operations in the host cities and even outside the arenas during the World Cup.

[00:01:22.690] 

Others worry that visas will not come through, or even if they do, that they will not be permitted to enter the United States once they arrive. Host city officials have said that they have gotten commitments from the federal immigration authorities that matches will not be disrupted by immigration arrests. The message from the Trump administration officials has been more mixed, and human rights organizations have issued an advisory urging caution. The Department of State established a process known as FIFA Pass to expedite short-term visas for more international ticket holders, but 4 of the World Cup's 48 competing nations are subject to travel bans imposed by the Trump administration on nationals from 75 countries. The players and coaching staff may be exempted from the ban. Their fans may not be able to travel to the United States. Other fans seeking to travel to the United States will be subject to visa bond payments of up to $15,000 per person if they did not act before April 15th to buy a World Cup ticket and sign up for FIFA Pass. To sort through this complex and fast-moving landscape, I'm delighted to be joined today by Albert Samaha, a veteran investigative sports journalist formerly with The Washington Post.

[00:02:35.380] 

He recently wrote an article in The New Yorker exploring how players participating in the World Cup are navigating U.S. policies and Albert is uniquely well-placed for this conversation, having long considered sports and immigration issues. He's the author of two books, Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes, and Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City. Albert, it's a great pleasure to welcome you today to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

[00:03:04.960] 

Thank you for having me, Ariel. Looking forward to chatting.

[00:03:07.590] 

Of course. So to kick off the conversation, Albert, do you think the high enforcement tenor taking place today in the United States around immigration has already had an effect on the World Cup? And if so, how?

[00:03:19.850] 

The fear that I found that people from all over the world outside the US have for how the Trump administration is handling deportations and immigration policies, that's very pervasive. That's been pervasive for months now. That's been something I've been hearing from relatives of players, from coaches, managers, from fans, from other parts of the world, really since, you know, the Trump administration got going and everyone sort of saw this, you know, potential World Cup deportation complication on the horizon. So there are no particular statistics available out there that we can point to and say, here's how it's affecting, you know, how often, you know, or how many people are coming. You know, there have been a lot of news reports about, uh, kind of the, the below expect— there have been a lot of news reports about how ticket sales have been below expectations. That could very just as well likely be because of how high the ticket prices are. Um, but anecdotally, speaking with fans from, from Senegal, from Haiti, uh, from other countries that have been on, on Donald Trump's travel ban list, um, a lot of folks are, are, are thinking, well, not only is this expensive, but, but I risk coming into a country where the, the, the color of my skin, the way I look, might subject me to, to harassment, detention, um, not even just getting picked up on the street by ICE, but, but, you know, showing your social media accounts to customs officials at the airports.

[00:04:45.110] 

All of these things are on the minds of people coming from countries that are under these travel bans, and also from people from countries that aren't under these travel bans but are worried that they can get racial profiled when they come into the U.S. So regardless of whatever the Trump administration and FIFA has said about how this will be an inclusive World Cup, how no one should expect any problems. Based on how the Trump administration has implemented their immigration and deportation proposals over the past year and a half now, there's been a lot of reason for people in other countries to fear coming to the US. And that's what they've expressed to me in recent months. And that doesn't seem to be changing the closer we get to the World Cup.

[00:05:27.480] 

Right. And that's also the case for Iran, correct? Some, some of the players also considering whether they will travel or not. Is there something you can tell us more about the Iran aspect of this?

[00:05:37.900] 

Yeah, so Iran, you know, was already one of 4 countries that had qualified for the World Cup but was on the sort of travel ban list that prevented people from those countries coming into the US on tourist visas, which effectively eliminates any chance of fans coming. Only players and people associated with the team. From these 4 countries, Iran, Haiti, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, will be able to get visas to come to the US. Since those policies were put in place last year, of course, the US has bombed Iran and gone to war with Iran. And Trump and the Iranian government officials have sort of gone back and forth in terms of what the plan will be. You know, Trump has said that Iran is welcome to come, but he can't promise their safety. The Iranian government has said that they don't want to send their players anywhere where their safety can't be protected. But the US has not blocked Iran from coming. Iran has not withdrawn from the World Cup. FIFA has said that everything's going to be fine. Sports will transcend politics. Everyone will be able to come. But ultimately, the US has already blocked some Iranian officials from coming to the US for FIFA-related preemptive events.

[00:06:52.840] 

So the question will be— and they— the U.S., Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, had said that these officials in the Iranian football delegation were part of the Revolutionary Guard. They cited sort of those connections to the government. But the question will be, when Iran comes to the U.S. for these games, will any of these officials be able to make it into the country? Will they get their visas before the games? For players, they'll all be able to come based on all the protocols that the US and FIFA have established. They won't be able to bring any family members. They will be barred from that, as will be players from Haiti and Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire. But of course, for Iran, the situation is particularly uncomfortable, particularly traumatic. You know, they're preparing for the World Cup while their relatives are back in Iran dealing with the war. And, you know, for a while, Iran's football delegation had tried to convince the World Cup FIFA to allow them to play their games in Mexico instead of the US, because at least in Mexico they wouldn't deal with the same visa restrictions. FIFA denied that request, said that everything's going to go according to order.

[00:08:01.800] 

So Iran will in fact play their games in the US as scheduled.

[00:08:05.790] 

Okay, well, and we'll come back to speak specifically about some of the restrictions for traveling internationally. But before we get there, I wanted to ask you The organizers have clearly made a big deal that this is the first time that three countries are co-hosting the World Cup. Do you think that this has become less comfortable for Mexico and Canada as the US has heightened immigration enforcement and battled both countries over their immigration policies? How do you, if at all, think that this affects that?

[00:08:31.110] 

It's a bit of a surreal circumstance, you know, isn't it? The US, Mexico, and Canada are officially partners. In hosting this massive global festival, essentially. And over the last year and a half since Trump's been in office, you know, he's had— he's butted heads with heads of state from both of those countries, whether it's, you know, threatening tariffs on Canada or, you know, deporting people from Mexico back to Mexico, even if they have some legal rights to stay in the US. It sort of has worked out in such a way that, I mean, here's the thing, the US is hosting 74 of the 104 total matches across the tournament. So while there are 2 other countries officially co-hosting who will welcome plenty of people coming into their countries to watch those games, the vast majority of games are in the US. So the US's policy is disproportionately important to how the games will operate. As it stands now, you know, there hasn't been a lot of kind of front-facing tension between those two, three countries when it comes to World Cup logistics and things like that. I think the sort of main component of having these other two countries is that for some fans, for example, from Senegal, who may not be able to get a visa into the U.S. to watch their team play, in New York or Atlanta or Boston, they have a higher chance of getting a visa to watch the team play in Toronto.

[00:10:04.250] 

So some fans are lucky that they will be able to go to these two other countries if their teams end up playing in those countries. For fans who only have their team playing in the US, they won't have that option available. But this is something that FIFA has been doing, you know, kind of aiming for the past few years, which is expanding the number of places that will, that will host an event. You know, one purpose of that is to lighten the load on one particular country as a host. The, I think, bigger purpose for FIFA is they want to be able to reward more countries. You know, it's a favor game. You know, the sort of financial corruption of FIFA has never been a secret. The more countries they can, they can give hosting spots to, the more countries they can please. You know, future World Cups are going to be hosted also in partnerships between like Spain and Morocco. And other sort of coalitions of countries. So this is sort of the first of what will keep happening around the world. And we may continue to see situations where— we may continue to see situations where multiple hosting countries for a World Cup will have conflicting policies.

[00:11:07.490] 

Okay. And that's a very interesting point, I guess, in terms of how international travelers may be coming and having different experiences in one country versus the other. Now, The other question I wanted to ask is, there's clearly some tensions and differences between immigration policies across the three countries, but there's also, in terms of, in the United States, there was also the attempt to expedite visa appointments for some international fans while at the same time doing restrictions for others. What do you think that could mean, not just for the fans like you're mentioning, but also for the players and generally the tournament overall, that there's some appointments that are being expedited but other, at the same time, others are being implemented with travel restrictions?

[00:11:48.230] 

It's something that everybody has to worry about at a time when everybody only wants to be thinking about the World Cup. You know, I think for players, you know, it comes down to will they be able to bring their families to watch them play at the sort of pinnacle experience of their young careers. You know, a lot of players I've talked to, they sort of try to focus on the games and offload the sort of logistical responsibilities to their agents, their national teams. And the agents and national teams sort of handled a lot of the applying for visas, arranging tickets for family members and all that. But for fans themselves, for people who want to come watch, watch the spectacle, watch their teams play, and maybe a once in a lifetime opportunity, it is sort of the fundamental stress. It's, it's this, it's this paradox where you have to buy a ticket far in advance in order to even register for this accelerated visa processing system. And tickets have been incredibly expensive and incredibly hard to get. In fact, we're seeing prices for tickets going down now. So there's actually an incentive to wait as long as you can before buying tickets.

[00:12:57.640] 

But for people from countries who need as many advantages as they can get for the visa process, people from— and I mean, we're mostly talking you know, African, Asian, uh, South American countries, countries with brown people, formerly colonized countries, the countries that, you know, Trump has really disproportionately targeted with a lot of his travel bans in both of his terms. So these are people coming from countries where their sort of, um, currency, uh, where they don't have the currency privileges of coming from Europe. So, so it's already gonna be more expensive in the first place with the exchange rates. Um, some countries have had to pay bonds. I know the Trump administration has revoked that recently, But the hurdles for even beginning this process were so high that you needed to pay— you needed to, first of all, get lucky enough to get one of the lottery tickets that FIFA was giving out to be— to have the right, to just have the right to purchase, you know, a $500, $1,000, oftentimes more ticket in order to just have a chance to have this accelerated process and not have your fee visa application going to a system that typically takes 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, um, where, you know, you could have a World Cup ticket, you could have these, you know, World Cup ambitions to, to, to— you've booked your hotels, you've booked your flights— none of that might matter if, if your visa doesn't go through.

[00:14:17.710] 

So the, the short answer of it is, is that the US created such a complicated, um, the US created such a complicated situation for people from the Global South that, uh, I, I wouldn't be surprised if there's just a large number of people that just figured it wasn't worth the, the effort, the money to go through all these hurdles, not even be assured, uh, uh, not even being assured getting a visa to come to the country. You know, maybe it's better to just watch at home, you know, amongst your, your fellow fans, right?

[00:14:50.470] 

I hear you're referencing too that there are some countries primarily from Europe that are participants in the visa waiver program for whom the impacts may still be felt, but will be relatively less than those of international travelers from the countries you mentioned. Now, switching over to the domestic front, we've heard a lot about ICE, and it's clear that ICE Homeland Security Investigations teams has for a long time worked major sport events like the Super Bowl. They largely focus on preventing human trafficking, stopping the scale of counterfeit goods, not on immigration operations. But there is a new backdrop this time around. The Trump administration has pledged to conduct 1 million deportations per year, and administration officials have repeatedly declared that they will conduct immigration enforcement operations anywhere, that there is no safe haven for unauthorized immigrants, and more recently, unofficial reports have vaguely suggested that there will not be enforcement at or near stadiums. But as I alluded to earlier, the messaging has just been mixed from the U.S. government. How much of the chilling effect do you think the fear of ICE enforcement at at or near stadiums will have on fans regardless of their status?

[00:15:53.800] 

It's a good question. I mean, I think if we're talking fear specifically, I mean, that'll just— I think there's always going to be a low-level fear, I think, for anyone who is in the country who feels like they might be a target for racial profiling or enforcement detention. So I think there will be a baseline level of fear. But I think for the people that have already committed, bought their tickets, gotten their visas, made their plans to go to these games, you've probably already filtered out people that are willing to withstand this fear. And, you know, in many cases we're talking about people that sort of just live with this fear regardless, right? Like if you were a brown person in America, brown or Black person in America, you move through your city, you move through the world constantly attuned to the possibility that a bunch of guys in boots and masks are gonna come up and throw you into a van and hold you hostage. Hold you without telling your family. So I think this is just sort of the price of doing business in America at this point. So I'm not sure that the people that— that there are people that don't feel fear now that will show up to games feeling more fear.

[00:17:01.870] 

You know, I think where the fear really might come from as well, though, is that this administration, Trump specifically, of course, is so, uh, everything's so discretionary. You know, the reason the policies have been so unpredictable and, and, and, and, and, um, and fickle is because Trump makes policy decisions based off of sort of what happened yesterday and who was, you know, whispered in his ear this morning. So right now it might seem like everything's going to be copacetic and there's not going to be targeted enforcement procedures. Who knows what can happen between now and then, you know, if Trump has any sort of conflicts with mayors or governors of sanctuary cities or states that will lead particular places to get targeted. So much can happen, so much is unpredictable, so much comes down to the discretion of one single person that I think the fear comes less from kind of the overarching threat of ICE detentions constantly looming and more from just the possibility that, a single president's discretion will kind of determine how all of this works. Right.

[00:18:10.680] 

And you brought up the local point, which is significantly important here. Now, whether or not there are ICE operations at or near stadiums, do you expect that city leaders, immigrant rights advocates, and others may protest outside of the arenas? Or do you think there'll be other plans?

[00:18:25.690] 

I wonder about that. You know, I do think one of the beautiful things about things like the World Cup or the Olympics is that it puts all eyes onto a place and their policies and really does provide an opportunity for people to speak up about what's happening in their country. I think when France had the Olympics, there were a lot of activists that held protests about the way the country was treating migrants and sweeping up homeless encampments across the city to prepare for the opening ceremonies. So it's a platform where everyone's looking to America to see what's going to happen, where there will be attention in, you know, a dozen American cities. There will be visitors, there will be the eyes on the world. So certainly it seems for activists there's an opportunity there to draw attention to their plight. I mean, even outside of explicit activism itself. Just speaking with players from other countries who come to the U.S., they sort of see the platform the World Cup presents for them to, you know, illuminate the plight of their own places. You know, I spoke to a lot of players on the Haitian national team who told me how important it was for them to be able to represent their flag, their anthem, their people.

[00:19:47.430] 

In a country that was implementing racist policies against their diaspora. Every time the Haitian— every time Haitian players take the field with their flag on their jerseys and their anthem playing before the games, they will be a visual and audio reminder of the policies that Trump has implemented, whether or not there's any explicit protests, whether or not any announcers mention it. On air, the very presence and visibility of players from these countries that have faced these racist American immigration policies will perform its own sort of protest just by being there.

[00:20:27.700] 

Right. And do you have a sense of what potentially the local or state response could be to either protest or this type of events in general? What do the host cities, for example, are they aware of negotiate some of this enforcement, or at least the fear of enforcement?

[00:20:44.240] 

It's hard to say. You know, there's a million different logistical things. I think a lot of these host cities are untangling right now, from hospitality, you know, to public transportation to, you know, the cost of a train ticket to the stadium. I'm not sure. You know, I'll be curious to see how, you know, cities prepare for both, you know, whether there's going to be more federal boots on the ground, whether there's going to be, you know, protests taking the streets in some places. I suspect that these cities are going to be ready for a multitude of possibilities, including, you know, political stuff, including safety stuff. But I'm not sure. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

[00:21:34.100] 

Sure. And now for a second to zoom out for here for a minute. The World Cup ends in July and 2 years later Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics. LA already has some experience with intensive immigration enforcement. In summer of 2025, in fact, it was the first city to see large-scale immigration operations, anti-US protests, and deployment of the National Guard. Undoubtedly those experiences will still be fresh in the mind of LA residents and officials when the Summer Olympics roll around. Do you think that the prep for the World Cup is offering any lessons for the Summer Olympic organizers? Is there anything that we can learn so far about the process for the World Cup that we can keep in mind for the Olympics or future events?

[00:22:13.860] 

I think there's evidence that, that the lessons that will come up from this World Cup will apply to, to LA in 2028, just by the fact that a year ago, when the U.S. hosted the Club World Cup in cities across America, that in many ways was a, was a run-through for, for how people were, were were expecting to experience the World Cup this year. And I guess to give it a little example, when LA hosted the Club World Cup last year, and this was in the spring, and fans from Brazil and France and all over the world were coming to watch professional football clubs play each other in the US, this was happening around the time that there was that big surge in immigration enforcement in LA. This is when there were the protests at Dodger Stadium. And there was that clash between Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Trump over how the deportation policy would play out on the ground in California and in LA specifically. And I remember covering that. I went to one of the Club World Cup games and it was on the lips of everyone standing in line to get into the stadium was looking around for any signs of ICE agents.

[00:23:26.440] 

There in fact were some Homeland Security officers perched in front of the stadium, you know, full geared up, full uniform. And I, I ended up interviewing some of them to see what they were there for. And it's one of those things where they explained that they're there for every sporting event. They're there for Super Bowls. As you said earlier, they're there for, you know, counterterrorism type activities, surveillance. But to everyone in line, they just saw federal officers who work for the same departments that, that's deporting people and picking people up off the streets. And I think sort of that clash, that experience in LA sort of framed how a lot of people were thinking about the World Cup in a way that was actually kind of positive because it turned out during that Club World Cup event, perhaps, you know, in part because of the attention the protests in LA were bringing, there weren't any reports of increased immigration enforcement around stadiums the way people feared. And, you know, I haven't necessarily heard this explicitly from people a ton, but I have noticed that after that event, there seemed— I seem to hear, at least anecdotally, less, uh, less specific concern about, about Trump rounding people up outside of stadiums for the World Cup.

[00:24:41.530] 

Um, I think the Club World Cup, it showed that maybe, um, the attention around sporting events, the very idea that sports is supposed to be this universal, this universal love that should transcend politics. Maybe that is enough to keep the administration at bay and not using it as an opportunity to hit those deportation quotas. So I think that's one way where I think whatever happens with this World Cup, good or bad, will frame the way we think about what's going to happen in 2028. And I think the fact that there is a World Cup and an Olympics happening under the same presidential administration, which so rarely happens, really does offer this very unique lens into a lot of people trying to project how Trump will, you know, respond to that sporting event the way he has done with this one.

[00:25:41.000] 

That's an excellent description, and I think it really sums up a lot of the intersections between just the general components of sporting events and generally what we are seeing changing so far in the Trump administration. I have so many more questions to ask you, but in the interest of time, we need to wrap this up. So thank you for this interesting conversation. I wish you the best in experiencing this World Cup experience here. And again, thank you for your participation. I learned so much from you today.

[00:26:07.560] 

Thanks so much for having me. Good speaking with you.

[00:26:12.950] 

I was so pleased to be joined today by Albert Samaha, a veteran investigative sports journalist. People often think of sports as a safe place that is divorced from realities of everyday life, including politics. With the Trump administration's muscular immigration policies ranging from operations in the streets of U.S. cities to travel bans, extreme vetting of immigrants and immigrant applications, and slowdowns in the processing of applications have landed at the door of the World Cup organizers and fans. And we'll offer now a hint of what might be ahead for organizers of the 2028 Summer Olympics. International fans traveling to the United States will likely have different experiences depending on their nationality. Those from countries that are part of the Visa Waiver Program may be the least affected, while those from other countries will likely face added barriers and delays. For fans who are unauthorized immigrants, hold a temporary legal status, or have a relative who is unauthorized. Fear of immigration enforcement at or near stadiums likely will reduce their in-person attendance and participation in the events that bring millions of dollars for host cities. With billions of people across the world, how the U.S. implements its immigration policies will be deeply integrated into players' and fans' experiences on and outside the pitch.

[00:27:26.440] 

And their perceptions could help determine not only the success of the 2026 World Cup, but how the United States is perceived in countries around the world for years ahead. Thank you for tuning into another episode of MPI's World of Migration. If you enjoyed this conversation, please check out other episodes. You can find World of Migration wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please leave us a review. You can find all the episodes for this and other MPI podcasts at MPI's website, migrationpolicy.org/podcast. This episode was produced by Daniella Espacio, with editorial input from Michelle Mittelstadt and assistance of Lisa Dixon. Our theme music is called "Bright Idea" by Geographer. I'm Ariel Ruiz Soto. Thank you again for listening, and see you next time.