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Thousands of soccer fans gathered in my hometown of Pasadena, California, on June 24, 2026, to watch Mexico’s World Cup win against the Czech Republic. City officials erected a large TV screen outside the Civic Auditorium in the heart of the commercial district. Fans wore green jerseys, the signature color of Mexico’s men’s soccer team. Several people waved Mexican flags and danced and hugged when their team scored a goal.

Similarly joyful celebrations are taking place this summer throughout the United States, which is hosting the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup series. “Soccer is a beautiful game because it really connects a lot of cultures, countries, [through] immigration,” said Enrique Cárdenas-Sifre, communications director at Mijente Support Committee. Cárdenas-Sifre is also one of the co-creators of Our Copa, a campaign launched to ensure “this moment belongs to the people — the fans, the families, and the communities who make the game beautiful.”

Immigrant-rich neighborhoods all across California — which is home to the nation’s largest foreign-born population — are gathering to watch the World Cup games in public and private spaces, from downtown Fresno in the north, to Los Angeles’ Koreatown in the south. Nationwide, there are World Cup watch parties in big cities like Seattle, Washington, and in small towns like Chicago-area Bridgeview, also known as Little Palestine, and Oak Cliff, North Texas.

According to Cárdenas-Sifre, “football in the United States is really connected to immigrant communities around the different states of the U.S., because those are the places where Latin Americans, Asians, and other communities get together to build community, to play the beautiful game.”

After more than a year of violent raids, mass disappearances, and family separations by U.S. federal immigration agents, it’s not surprising that immigrant-rich communities are wary of large gatherings in public space.

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A year earlier, Customs and Border Protection, in a now-deleted June 2025 post on X, announced its agents would be present at the first round of FIFA games in Florida. At around the same time, federal agents deported a Latin American man seeking asylum, who was arrested outside MetLife Stadium in New Jersey where he had been watching a FIFA match. He was promptly deported and separated from his family. The man, whose identity has been kept hidden to protect his family, told France 24 that he didn’t think it was a good idea for immigrants to attend soccer games in the U.S. this summer for fear they would be arrested and deported like he was.

The Trump administration’s ongoing travel ban, which almost exclusively impacts majority-nonwhite nations, also determines who gets to visit the U.S. for the World Cup. Omar Artan, a soccer referee from Somalia, was denied entry into the U.S. even though he was assigned to officiate at the World Cup games. After arriving in Miami, Artan was put on a return flight back to Somalia because he had, according to Trump officials, been talking to “some very bad........

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