Commentary: The World Cup needs an ICE truce

Minky Worden, Progressive Perspectives on Mar 30, 2026

Published in Op Eds

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With the world’s largest sporting event, the World Cup, slated to begin in June, the United States should call a truce in the campaign of terror being waged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies against immigrants and others.

Major sporting events have long relied on the so-called “Olympic Truce,” which dates back to the eighth century B.C., when the warring city-states of ancient Greece agreed to cease hostilities so that athletes and fans could travel safely to and from the games. The International Olympic Committee and the United Nations revived the concept in 1993, and to this day, the U.N. puts forward a resolution before each Olympics calling on member nations to observe the Olympic Truce.

Given the risks posed by the Trump administration’s abusive immigration operations to World Cup 2026 soccer fans, tournament workers and communities hosting the games, FIFA should back a similar “ICE Truce” as it organizes this year’s World Cup.

During the first weeks of 2026, the world watched in horror as federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were protesting and observing immigration enforcement operations in their community. Beyond Minnesota, immigration officers are engaging in excessive violence and deploying military-grade weapons during enforcement operations.

In communities across the nation, federal agents, masked and without identification, have swarmed individuals, broken car windows and front doors and injured people. Rising numbers of people are locked up in ICE detention centers. Thirteen people have died in ICE custody since the beginning of 2026.

Fans attending the upcoming tournament, regardless of their immigration status, may be at risk. From January to October 2025, ICE arrested at least 92,392 people in and around the 11 U.S. cities hosting World Cup matches, according to data analyzed by Human Rights Watch. Some of these operations relied on detaining people on the basis of their perceived national origin.

To be a host city for the World Cup should not mean becoming an ICE enforcement epicenter.

On Feb. 10, Democratic U.S. Congressmember Nellie Pou of New Jersey — whose district includes MetLife Stadium, where the World Cup final will be played — asked acting ICE Director Todd Lyons if he would pause operations at World Cup matches. Lyons testified that ICE is a “key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup.”

Since then, Pou and members of Congress from World Cup host states have introduced three bills to block ICE during the World Cup, including restrictions on ICE on public transport and Fan Fests during the tournament.

We know from our research at Human Rights Watch that ICE has conducted immigration enforcement actions around FIFA events. Last July, a father, an asylum seeker, took his two children — ages 10 and 14 — to the Club World Cup final at MetLife Stadium. Police detained him, then turned him over to ICE. Instead of celebrating their favorite sport together, his children watched their father taken away in handcuffs.

FIFA built out a human rights framework for 2026, with lofty language about welcoming everyone “in an environment where they feel safe, included and free to exercise their rights.” A coalition of human rights and labor organizations has pressed FIFA to match its rhetoric with action.

Human rights commitments are baked into the bid that the United States, Canada and Mexico made to host the World Cup, an event that is expected to bring more than one million visitors to the United States. A World Cup ICE Truce should guarantee, at minimum, that fans, players, journalists and their families can travel to and inside the United States freely, safely and with dignity.

On Jan. 13, Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA to express “grave concerns over the potential impact of U.S. government immigration policies on the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” warning that ICE activities at stadiums, fan zones and in host cities could violate the human rights of fans, workers and community members. FIFA did not reply.

To protect fans — and indeed, its World Cup brand — FIFA should harken back to the practices of ancient Greece and insist on an ICE Truce to ensure federal agents do not conduct violent immigration enforcement in and around World Cup venues.

Rights-abusive arrests and deportations have no place in the world’s game.

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Minky Worden is director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, and editor of a book on the Beijing 2008 Olympics. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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