BROOKLYN, N.Y. — On a recent weekday evening, Avram Kline kicked a soccer ball to his son on the bright green pitch in Brooklyn Bridge Park, where the skyscrapers of Manhattan loom just across the East River.

Kline is a self-described soccer superfan who founded the Newcomers Football Club, a mutual aid group to support asylee and refugee players from all over the world — Chad, Morocco, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria and other nations — who found their footing in the United States by gathering to cook food, teach each other their languages and, most of all, to play soccer.

“People who play together, even on a casual basis, without even knowing each other, are already friends, and they already have a bond of trust, because the game is based on trust,” said Kline, 56.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup, which begins on Thursday, is expected to draw between 5 million and 7 million soccer fans to the 11 U.S. host cities. New York City, which is hosting games in partnership with East Rutherford, New Jersey, is expecting 1.2 million fans. But as the games begin, Kline and many others say the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the planned presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is casting a pall over an event that is supposed to bring the world together.

“To say that you might get racially profiled, you might get interviewed, or you might be pulled aside. Yeah, that’s incredibly embarrassing,” Kline said.

This week, White House border czar Tom Homan told CBS News that ICE officers will provide security during the games, but that they will focus primarily on public safety, not immigration enforcement.

But many soccer fans, stadium workers, civil rights groups and some city officials are skeptical. They say the presence of immigration agents at World Cup games is more likely to cause disturbances than prevent them, citing recent altercations between protesters and ICE agents at detention facilities, including in Newark, New Jersey.

“Can anyone really trust ICE or this administration when they say they will not be engaging in immigration enforcement at stadiums or around fan clubs or fan festivals or watch parties?” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“I don’t think anyone really can take their word for it, given the record of the last year and a half.”

In April, the ACLU and more than 120 other groups issued a travel advisory warning soccer fans, journalists and players that they could be arbitrarily denied entry to the country, be arrested or detained, or be subjected to surveillance or racial profiling as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Earlier this week, Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who was set to be the first Somali to referee a World Cup tournament, was denied entry into the U.S. at Miami International Airport. U.S. Immigration officials told Stateline that Artan was “inadmissible due to vetting concerns.” At the end of last year, the Trump administration included Somalia on a list of 39 countries whose nationals are subject to enhanced travel restrictions.

World Cup participants Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Iran and Senegal are also on the list. On June 6, Aymen Hussein, a striker for the Iraqi team, was also reportedly detained and questioned for nearly seven hours at Chicago O’Hare International airport. While Hussein was let into the country, the team’s photographer was denied entry.

Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement to Stateline, “International visitors who legally come to the United States for the World Cup have nothing to worry about.” Bis also said that only someone’s status living in the country illegally would make them a target for immigration enforcement and added, “Speculation to the contrary is ill-informed.”

Grassroots and local efforts 

Oscar Morales and Melinda Fox have protested ICE enforcement activity in neighborhoods in Atlanta, which is also hosting World Cup games. When they discovered they lived in the same Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, which is hosting a massive watch party this week, they were determined to spread the word that federal immigration officers might show up.

During the past few weekends, Fox and Morales and several other volunteers knocked on doors and conducted public training sessions to inform people of their right to decline to speak to immigration agents who don’t have a warrant. They’ve also encouraged local businesses to post signs saying ICE would not be welcome.

“People were very scared of what happened in Minneapolis, like they are just seeing how ICE agents are escalating things,” Morales said.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law in 2024 that tightened the state’s ban on so-called sanctuary policies, threatening localities with a loss of funding and misdemeanor charges for failing to cooperate.

Georgia’s stance has put Atlanta in a tough spot, Democratic city councilmember Kelsea Bond told Stateline.

In April, Bond helped push through two resolutions expressing the city council’s opposition to ICE facilities inside the city limits and requesting that the Atlanta Police Department chief establish policies under which employees would document any suspected misconduct from ICE agents when they are present during police activities.

“I was getting emails and questions from my own constituents and supporters,” Bond said. “I was very deliberate about working with immigrants’ rights organizations to build support for this initiative, and we had dozens of community members come out to city hall to speak in the public safety committee meeting and ensure that both of these ICE-related resolutions got passed.”

In California, Cesar Zamaro works as a bartender at SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, another World Cup site. Zamaro is a member of UNITE HERE Local 11, a union representing more than 2,000 bartenders, cashiers, dishwashers, cooks and other food workers at SoFi Stadium. On Wednesday, the union approved a contract that, along with wage increases, includes language giving workers the right to strike if ICE “threatens worker safety during the World Cup,” according to a news release.

“It takes away your desire to get to work when you know that you might be harassed or you might be detained for no reason,” Zamaro said.

Zamaro and other organizers say they are seeking a commitment from FIFA that they will be protected. Stateline reached out to FIFA but did not receive a response.

Not the right place for ICE?

Logan Kennedy, an assistant professor of criminal justice at East Carolina University, said that in the past, ICE has helped provide security for large sporting events. However, Kennedy noted that under the Trump administration, the agency has become much more aggressive in its immigration enforcement.

“We’ve seen an increase in collateral arrests. There’s a lot of discretion in those situations, and it can be seen as overly authoritative in a lot of ways,” Kennedy said. “And it really damages public perceptions of not only ICE in general, obviously, but also that has a widespread impact on every type of police agency in the United States.”

Kennedy said it would undermine ICE’s legitimacy to target World Cup participants or fans.

“This would just make us look horrible, number one, from an international perspective, and two, really reduce our legitimacy from a policing standpoint.”

In Kansas City, Missouri, Democratic Mayor Quinton Lucas said the city will cooperate with law enforcement but will not participate in “immigration acquisition.”

“Are we going to get into a civil war with ICE? I certainly hope that’s not necessary, but the best group that can control that is ICE itself and the Trump administration itself,” Lucas told Stateline.

Back on the pitch at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Kline reflected on all the ways club members became a part of his family and role models to his son. Kline said soccer fans are likely to fight back if one of their own is targeted.

“At any party that takes place in the public area with other soccer fans, citizens like me, there’s no way in hell that ICE would be able to do their thing,” Kline said.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Health officials from the U.S. cities hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup say they are preparing to deal with infectious diseases, heat-related illness, and an array of other health threats when millions of fans, many of them from overseas, come to watch the games.

The World Cup is expected to draw between 5 million and 7 million soccer fans to the 11 U.S. host cities, which are Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City (in partnership with East Rutherford, New Jersey), Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

The newly formed Big Cities Health Coalition, a consortium of health officials from 36 of the nation’s largest health departments, says it has been formulating a strategy to mitigate any negative health impacts from such a large influx of people entering the country at once.

At a news briefing on Wednesday, health officials from Atlanta, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, and San Jose said they are preparing for disease monitoring and contact tracing during the weeks of soccer matches, which begin on June 11.

The officials said they aren’t concerned about the hantavirus, which is very rare. However, they are worried about the spread of measles after recent outbreaks around the country.

“Somebody might be here for a game in Atlanta and be exposed to something — let’s say measles, since that’s been so prevalent lately,” said Marcus Plescia, district health director at the Fulton County Board of Health, which includes the Atlanta region, “But by the time we realize that and start to look at who might be at risk, that fan might have traveled to Dallas to see their team playing there.”

“Something that happens here may actually have its impact somewhere else, and we’re going to have to think about how we handle that and hand off information.”

Alister Martin, commissioner of New York City’s health and mental hygiene department, said health officials also are concerned about extreme heat, alcohol and drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases.

“Relevant teams from disease control to mental health have been preparing to work in new capacities for months, and most recently, we tested our emergency capacity at our healthcare facilities,” Martin said.

At the briefing, the health officials said they are strapped for resources as a result of the expiration of COVID-19-era public health funding, and that host cities have gotten federal dollars for security and infrastructure needs but not for public health.

“In Atlanta, at least, there’s been some significant investment in infrastructure improvements, and those are very important things,” Plescia said. “We’ve not received a lot of direct funding for specific public health services.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.