The New England region expects 2-3 million visitors for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by the US, Mexico and Canada.
Many of these tourists will visit for the seven matches at Gillette Stadium near Boston from June 13 to July 9, with projections of 450,000 ticketed fans attending high-profile matchups like England vs. Ghana, Norway vs. France, and Haiti vs. Brazil.
What we want:
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FIFA and the 2026 World Cup host committee to make good on their promise of a safe, welcoming, and inclusive tournament by issuing enforceable safety guarantees for all fans, journalists, vendors, and residents affected by the games;
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Host city officials to reaffirm local protections, and to publicly commit to the safety of all visitors regardless of immigration status;
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The Trump administration to ensure ICE does not target fans, journalists, vendors, or visitors attending the World Cup and to cease unconstitutional enforcement tactics, including racial profiling.
Background
While soccer is known globally as “the beautiful game” that often unites international communities, plans for this year’s games are already dampened by harsh new travel bans and exorbitant visa bonds.
For those who can make it into the US, it could become a very different experience than anticipated, due to increasingly authoritarian trends in immigration enforcement.
Over the past year, masked agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol have been conducting nationwide operations — such as “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine — in which individuals are detained through racial profiling and without due process rights.
For international visitors to New England, this cooperation with rogue federal agencies raises particular concerns: even if a person is visiting, operations that involve unmarked or masked agents, detentions without obvious identification, or a local police force that now has immigration‐enforcement authority can create uncertainty and heightened risk. Visitors have become entangled in enforcement actions, scrutiny, questioning; some have been jailed and deported.
Check out our FIFA Travel Advisory Toolkit for more info and ways to get involved, and stay tuned for a listing of community watch parties!
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