The success of the World Cup depends on where you look. Jennifer Li, director of the Dignity 2026 coalition, which brings together dozens of national and international groups to advocate for a tournament that takes into account the communities that support it, knows this perfectly well. “I think FIFA will call it a success. I think it’s going to be excellent for football fans: from the start of the matches until the final whistle blows, we’re all going to feel a huge rush of dopamine. But we can’t forget the people who really live herebecause this World Cup is being held on their backs,” he says by video call a week before the ball rolls. Li coordinates and leads civil society organizations that are working to ensure that the largest sporting event on the planet guarantees the rights of workers and attendees, in the present and also in the future.
The fronts are varied, from public health issues to labor rights or housing. But perhaps the most notable has been the possible presence of agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) at the matches and, in general, in the activities that will be held around the World Cup. Throughout the country they have redoubled their efforts the groups, which mobilized since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency with the deployment of an unprecedented immigration offensive.
The script is similar everywhere. In Dallas, the organization The DFW Movement has intensified its training so that people know their immigration rights, has strengthened its hotline where they can request support in case of an arrest and has distributed kits with whistles and information in the community. “While governments are developing safety plans, immigrant communities are also preparing emergency plans. Across the country, families are attending training courses on their rights. Parents are creating emergency contact lists. Volunteers are creating rapid response networks. Lawyers are also organizing legal assistance. Community members are learning who to call if a loved one is detained or disappears in the immigration system,” says Azael Álvarez, an organizer with El Movimiento, who works in one of the places where the most There have been immigration arrests in the country.
Texas has been a kind of training ground for immigration policies that have then been applied at the federal level, says Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, an attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in Houston. In the last few days, state law SB4 has come into effect after years of legal back-and-forth allowing so-called “peace officers,” who range from a forest ranger to a sheriff, to arrest anyone they believe is in Texas without authorization. “In other words, it allows racial profiling,” says Canales-Pelaez. “Our residents and visitors must drive with caution in our city and our State. Therefore, remember that all people who are in the United States, regardless of their immigration status, enjoy rights set forth in the Constitution. The most important of these is the right to remain silent,” warns the lawyer, predicting a strong police presence.
The coalition No ICE in the Cupwhich brings together 70 other groups nationwide, combines the same agenda of community training, regarding rights, as well as strengthening support teams. But it also does so in parallel with more positive initiatives, focused on generating ties in communities. “We just had a youth soccer tournament in Brooklyn where we collaborated with a local New York organization dedicated to immigration. These small community events have a big impact on communities. What allowed the resistance and fight against ICE in Minneapolis to be successful, if you can call it that, were those small, complex connections between neighbors. That’s what we are building here,” explains Paola Mendoza, an artist and coalition organizer, who has been involved in these types of initiatives since the Women’s March during the Trump’s first term. On its website you can download posters made by artists, as well as join the coalition in different ways or organize a Watch Party open to the public.
The preparation of the community for possible immigration raids within the framework of the World Cup is to a certain extent preventive. Authorities have given contradictory messages month after month about the presence of ICE in and around World Cup stadiums. While one member of the Administration assures that ICE will definitely be present, another denies or backs down, and clarifies that they will only be carrying out security support tasks. Some local authorities in host cities have assured that local law enforcement will not collaborate in immigration efforts, but in other places, such as Texas, it may be the opposite. A recent survey of Washington Post found that The majority of Americans reject ICE being present in stadiums. Either way, communities are preparing for the worst.
The organizations are also fighting for the labor rights of those who support the event. The most media case has been that of Los Angeleswhere SoFi Stadium has become the epicenter of union resistance. Yolanda Fierro, a hospitality worker at the stadium and member of the Unite Here Local 11 union, explains that after more than a year trying to negotiate a fair contract, the workers’ patience has run out. “The stadium does not want to give us equitable wages for the work we do; we want to be able to take care of our families, since the cost of living in California is extremely high,” Fierro says.
This Friday, 96% of union members They voted in favor of going on strike during the World Cup, including the US team’s opening match on June 12 at SoFi Stadium. They also do not forget the immigration issue: the union demands a commitment that ICE agents will not enter the premises, a guarantee for both employees and attendees.
In Miami, Kat Passley, co-director of the labor and express rights organization Beyond the Bars, denounces a more opaque structure of exploitation: the proliferation of temporary employment agencies and subcontracting chains that dilute the responsibility of employers. “This system opens the door to wage theft, unsafe working conditions and, in the worst cases, human trafficking,” says Passley, drawing a direct parallel with the rights violations documented during the construction of the World Cup in Qatar.
The contradiction between the massive investment for the tournament and the neglect of the basic needs of the residents is another of the recurring complaints. Nowhere is this more evident than in Kansas City, which has become a symbol of this disconnection through the construction of a new prison explicitly justified by the World Cup. Amaia Cook, director of Decarcerate KC, exposes the irony: “The red carpet is being rolled out for tourists while bus fares are imposed (until recently the public transport system was free), driving permits for neighbors to enter their own homes and new cells for people here.”
In Atlanta, the memory of the 1996 Olympics acts as a living trauma that shapes the current response. Michael Collins, director of PlayFair ATL, recalls how thousands of homeless people were arrested or bussed away to offer a “clean” image to the world. Today, activists denounce that infrastructure improvements are designed exclusively for show, while residents suffer recurring crises due to collapsed pipes or lack of basic maintenance. Collins criticizes in particular what he calls the “original sin” of the World Cup: planning led by corporations — such as Coca-Cola or Home Depot, both based in Atlanta — that prioritize economic profit over the well-being of residents.
In an effort to measure the performance of each host city, Dignity 2026 has developed with Georgetown University a scorecard or scorecard. This system does not rate sporting performance, but instead uses 20 indicators—based on FIFA’s own human rights standards—to measure whether venues meet criteria for living wages, access to housing, or protection against discrimination, among others, based on the direct experience of local people.
The scoreboard, explains Jennifer Li, will live long after the final is over in New Jersey to reflect that the real success of this World Cup will not be measured in FIFA’s accounting books, but in the social and infrastructure legacy it leaves in the cities. Likewise, the leaders of the coalitions and civil organizations that have participated at different levels emphasize that July 19 will not mark the end of their work. On the contrary, everyone agrees, the World Cup has been the perfect excuse to organize and strengthen unions, protect the right to housing and improve public health in the long term.
The goal goes beyond this World Cup or other sporting events on the horizon, such as the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. In fact, much closer on the horizon are the November midterm elections, when they hope that these community, but also national, networks and connections will help strengthen grassroots resistance to the Trump Administration.
