Human rights organizations denounced that, with just a few days left before the start of the Soccer World Cupin the United States there is an atmosphere of fear and repression motivated by the risks faced by both visitors and residents in the country thanks to the policies of Donald Trump’s Government.
The executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance, Andrea Florence, was very clear at the start of a virtual press conference: “With just a few days left before the start of the World Cup, a dangerous climate of fear, uncertainty and repression prevails.”
Florence considered it paradoxical that this is the first World Cup for which FIFA has decided to design, in consultation with civil society actors and public officials from the three countries that host the tournament between June 11 and July 19, a human rights framework that according to her is not implemented today.
The restrictions on the granting of visas, the tightening of citizen surveillance systems and the rigidity of the borders on which the Trump Administration is committed, he said, are the main ingredients of this “generalized climate of fear.”
“No one can enjoy the World Cup if a masked agent asks for your passport when entering a stadium,” said Minky Worden, director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch (HRW), co-organizer of the press conference, referring to the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, omnipresent in many parts of the US after Trump’s return to power.
Worden stressed that since it is held in three countries, there will be people who will be “in danger” because they will have to cross US borders and at the same time recalled that in the eleven US cities that will host World Cup matches, immigration authorities have detained more than 167,000 people in the last year. “Asking for a truce from ICE is for the benefit of the tournament itself,” he insisted.
Way to go to the FIFA Fan Fest
For her part, Yareliz Mendez Zamora, policy coordinator of the humanitarian organization American Friends Services Committee in Florida, insisted that it is in that state – which will host 7 games at the Miami stadium – where the most immigration arrests are recorded every day in the country and that this has made “communities afraid.”
“People are afraid of going to a FIFA Fan Fest, being stopped for a broken turn signal and suddenly being separated from their family,” he explained.
Mendez Zamora also wanted to highlight the atmosphere of uncertainty generated by the Trump Administration’s messages, and recalled that after the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, assured that there would be no immigration operations during the championship, the head of National Security, Markway Mullin, contradicted him by saying that ICE will have a visible presence within the framework of the competition.
The activist highlighted that communities such as Haiti have already seen how the temporary immigration protection status of many of their members has been abruptly revoked by the Government this year and that, given this situation, few of their members will want to go to stadiums or public events to cheer on their team, which will be in the World Cup for the first time since 1974.
In that sense, former Australian national team player Craig Foster highlighted that “many fans have been denied the right to see their teams, teams that in some cases – such as Cape Verde, Jordan, Uzbekistan or Curacao – are going to participate in the World Cup for the first time in their history.”
The former midfielder pointed out that this week there has already been the first problem at customs for a footballer – the Swiss Breel Embolo was prohibited from boarding with the rest of his team to fly to the US – and he said that the fact that FIFA has allowed this climate in the country “is unacceptable.”
“We are not seeing the players themselves speak because of the (immigration) risk it poses to them,” said Foster, who asked that an ethics committee investigate the president of soccer’s highest body, Gianni Infantino.
