ACLU Joins Coalition Calling For FIFA to Uphold Human Rights Ahead 2026 World Cup

From Los Angeles to New Jersey, many of the United States’ host cities for the 2026 World Cup are home to large immigrant communities. Though this year’s slogan is “Football Unites the World,” these communities now live in daily fear of racial profiling, inhumane detention, separation from loved ones, and summary deportation because of President Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

Rather than leverage its international influence to press for human rights protections amid escalating immigration crackdowns, FIFA, the international soccer governing body, has chosen to remain silent while its president, Gianni Infantino, has aligned himself closer to the Trump administration. But human rights are no game. If FIFA fails to take action, countless people, especially noncitizens who are traveling to or living in the U.S., risk being unlawfully targeted, detained, and deported without due process. The 2026 World Cup also risks becoming a platform that legitimizes repression instead of advancing global unity.

While the administration’s rising violence and authoritarianism pose serious risks to all, people from immigrant communities, racial and ethnic minority groups, and LGBTQ+ communities have been disproportionately targeted and are most vulnerable to serious harm. In the absence of concrete guarantees from FIFA, host cities, or the U.S. government, the ACLU has joined a coalition that has issued a travel advisory for the World Cup, urging individuals to exercise caution and have a contingency plan when traveling to and within the U.S. It warns fans, players, journalists, and other visitors of potential human rights abuses — including racial profiling and discrimination by law enforcement, invasive social media screening and searches of electronic devices, the suppression of speech and protest, and the risk of cruel or inhuman treatment, with some cases resulting in death, while in immigration detention facilities or custody.

The Trump administration has issued a series of executive orders and policy changes that violate both international and U.S. human rights law. In November 2025, the U.S. failed to show up for its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process designed to evaluate a state’s track record on protecting human rights. This unprecedented evasion of accountability reflects President Trump’s broader campaign to disrupt international law and justice, including withdrawing the U.S. from 66 international organizations, forums, and United Nations entities after disengaging from the United Nations Human Rights Council in February 2025 and sanctioning the International Criminal Court.

2025 also marked the deadliest year in two decades for individuals at ICE detention centers, with 32 people dying in custody. Still, detention facilities continue to expand. After ICE agents murdered an unarmed 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, while in her car in Minneapolis, President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy military troops to suppress anti-ICE protests. Immigration enforcement now wields unprecedented authority and funding under the Trump administration.

At the same time, 6.5 million people from all over the world are projected to travel to Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. for the 2026 World Cup. As the human rights climate in the U.S. deteriorates, it is critical for FIFA to advocate for policy changes that align with international human rights and ensure that players, fans, and journalists can participate safely. Instead, FIFA has spent the last year closely aligning itself with the Trump administration by hosting its recent tournament draw at the Kennedy Center, a place where President Trump received the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize. FIFA presented the award to Trump against a backdrop of violent immigration crackdowns, National Guard deployments, flagrant disregard of international human rights law, and attempts to overturn birthright citizenship. While recent news reports show that FIFA leadership has attempted to urge the Trump administration to issue a moratorium on ICE raids across the country this summer, no concrete policy changes have been announced. ICE continues to act with little accountability or regard for human dignity, and should be reined in both during and beyond the FIFA World Cup games.

Currently, the administration has travel bans against 39 countries, including nations participating in the World Cup. The Trump administration also started an illegal war with Iran and continues to launch unlawful lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean. Still, FIFA has embraced President Trump, offering its inaugural Peace Prize as consolation for him not winning the Nobel Peace Prize while simultaneously claiming to be “politically neutral.”

Last July, the ACLU joined several advocacy groups in pressing FIFA to deliver a World Cup that protects the rights of all community members. In a joint letter to FIFA, we urged the organization to publicly recognize the severity of the U.S. government’s immigration policies and abusive enforcement tactics, which threaten to harm tournament attendees and local communities. The letter received no response.

Yet the World Cup games and events will occur in many of the same cities that are currently facing mass immigration raids: including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, New York City, and more. Meanwhile, the State Department has started developing a “Sports Diplomacy Playbook” to leverage large-scale sporting events, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, to advance Trump’s immigration and foreign policy agendas.

In the spirit of community, international sporting events, including the World Cup, have historically been used to spark social change. Most notably, at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos raised gloved fists during the U.S. national anthem to protest racial and economic injustice against Black Americans and the Vietnam War. Similarly, during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, protesters surrounded the Games to call for the end to the death penalty in Georgia, as nearly 100 men were held on death row less than 40 miles from the stadium.

During the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, advocates and athletes used the Games’ global platform to protest anti-Black racism in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. From Britain to Chile, Japan to Costa Rica, they publicly asserted their support for justice and human rights despite the International Olympic Committee’s initial ban from doing so. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, athletes protested a range of human rights issues, including LGBTQ+ rights and the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, setting the stage for similar actions in 2026. Even the last World Cup hosted by the United States in 1994, saw a surge in activism to protest crackdowns and rhetoric against immigrant communities.

FIFA has unique leverage right now to pressure the U.S. government to respect the fundamental human rights of every person visiting and attending the games, as well as those working and living in the 11 U.S. host cities. That's why the ACLU and other members of the Dignity 2026 Coalition have been urging FIFA to act. But FIFA has yet to offer meaningful assurances. It's time to up the pressure: Join us in demanding that FIFA call for an end to the Trump administration's human rights abuses.