2026 FIFA World Cup: Immigrant Workers Aren’t Playing from the Sidelines  

By Claire Ellis

Global sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the World Cup have always been cites of extraordinary exploitation and abuse of workers. But this year’s FIFA World Cup is promising to test the limits. With organizing efforts by labor to resist ICE raids at stadiums and host city-led efforts to combat human trafficking around the matches, here’s everything you need you know as a worker, spectator, and community member.  

Nothing New 

This year’s World Cup is being co-hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Eleven cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, are erecting stadiums, preparing for millions of tourists from across the world, and bolstering their hospitality, construction, cleaning, and security sectors—often through the employment of temporary workers.

With a major surge in the demand for transient labor, experts warn that human trafficking networks have been actively posting fraudulent World Cup temporary job offers to ensnare individuals in labor trafficking. Defined by the Department of Labor as “the exploitation of someone for the purposes of compelled labor or a commercial sex act through the use of force, fraud, or coercion,” trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry that goes grossly underreported. Many myths and misconceptions about identifying the prototypical survivor of trafficking abound (such as the belief that all survivors of trafficking are foreign born individuals or those from low socioeconomic backgrounds), so host cities across the US are mobilizing to educate the public about bystander invention and share resources for survivors.

For example, SeattleFWC26 has partnered with Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST) to offer training to FIFA employees to learn how to detect, intervene, and report suspected trafficking. Los Angeles County has created a regional task force to disseminate information and deploy trained professionals to help connect survivors with resources. And in Oakland, community members are sharing the National Human Trafficking Hotline and the Ebony Alert in California, warning specifically of the risk to Black children and sex trafficking coordinated by the rich and powerful.

With many task forces collaborating with law enforcement, these informational campaigns may unfortunately lead to increased surveillance and policing of marginalized communities, such as immigrants, sex workers, and unhoused people. Thus, in shining a spotlight on the human casualties in the shadow of the World Cup celebrations, it is crucial to educate the public on dismantling stereotypes about trafficking and remain ever vigilant against criminal markets that are produced through the silencing and erasure of survivors.

ICE Threats and Worker-Led Responses 

This year’s World Cup brings additional threats to immigrant workers and fans of the game. Mounting controversy has infected anticipation for the Cup, largely directed at the winner of the newly minted “FIFA Peace Prize,” whose ongoing war in Iran and travel bans against Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal (all four countries expected to play) have barred fans’ entry into the United States, alongside restrictive visa policies pricing out many. Strikingly, the US denied entry to decorated Somali World Cup referee Omar Artan because of alleged links to terrorist organizations, in lockstep with the president’s xenophobic witch hunt maligning Somali working people.

Domestically, Latinx communities in the US are planning resistance and mutual aid to ensure their safety from the looming threat of ICE raids during the World Cup. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that ICE will not be operating inside stadiums, but ICE activity around the matches is sure to menace local residents through overbroad promises of keeping law and order. Citizens and non-citizens alike have been subject to extreme racial profiling by ICE agents, so community organizations across the nation are training locals about ICE defense, hosting ICE-free watch parties, speaking to businesses to create safe spaces, and coordinating immigration lawyers in rapid response networks for those swept up in raids.

But the message “We Keep Us Safe” doesn’t end when you put on a uniform and clock in to work. Local 11 of UNITE HERE has sent a clear message to ICE and to fellow immigrants across the country: If ICE shows up at your work, workers can blow the whistle. The food and beverage workers at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California have reached an agreement with Legends Global, the stadium’s food contractor, that they reserve the right to walk off the job if ICE shows up at their stadium in defense of their existence and significance to the Los Angeles community and economy. 

While this landmark agreement is attributable to the fearlessness of the workers and their union, it’s important to remember that all workers have the legal right to peacefully walk off the job if their safety and dignity as workers is infringed upon. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects the right of all employees, even those who are non-unionized or lack work authorization, to engage in “concerted activity” for their “mutual aid and protection.” Thus, two or more employees engaged in protest over a genuine fear of harm presented by the invasion of ICE in their workplace are protected from employer retaliation.

The law acknowledges that workers are powerful when we stand together in solidarity. During this year’s FIFA World Cup, we must all stand up to violence in and outside the workplace, whether perpetuated by state or private actors.

Bracing for Kickoff

As the World Cup festivities begin, here are some resources that outline the important rights and recourses you can learn more about and share: 

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