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"You can see recently in some of the Homeland Security tweets, they are using the US Men National Soccer Team to talk about their quasi-fascist quotes, saying, "Build the wall. Defend the homeland. This is our soil." - Enrique Cardenas-Sifre, Our Copa.

FEATURING ENRIQUE CÁRDENAS-SIFRE - World Cup fever is in full swing in the United States, the primary host of the 2026 FIFA games, a global sporting event drawing legions of fans from around the world. The World Cup, which has historically been a joyful mass event, was marred in its leadup by reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would be part of security arrangements at stadiums hosting the games.

In the US, World Cup fans are disproportionately of immigrant origin. In the lead up to the games, organizers formed a campaign dubbed Nuestra Copa, or Our Cup, to demand ICE-free events and center fans in a game that has been traditionally seen as “the people’s game.”

Enrique Cárdenas-Sifre is the Communications Director at Mijente Support Committee and one of the co-creators behind Our Copa, a national campaign using the 2026 World Cup to celebrate immigrant communities, build power through soccer, and defend the fans who make the game beautiful. He spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about the Our Copa campaign.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: I am going to admit right off the bat, I am not into soccer. I don't understand it. I don't follow it. But I have been so fascinated seeing how excited people get by this game, both in past games and also particularly this year when the majority of the games are being held in the United States.

It's really been interesting to see how excited people get and how celebratory it is. So what happened to those very troubling reports that ICE agents were going to be at stadiums? I'm in Los Angeles, where at the SoFi Stadium, workers there were threatening to go on strike if indeed ICE was going to be part of the security apparatus. What happened? 

Enrique Cárdenas-Sifre: Yeah. So, we've been tracking ICE activity as Mijente Support Committee. It's a pro-immigrant organization. So we've been tracking ICE activity since the new administration took control of DHS and their ICE deportation machine. There were some rumors, and in effect, there's some ICE agents working near the stadiums. 

What we've been seeing right now is, let's say, a calm moment. There was a lot of noise of having ICE raids during the stadiums, but we haven't put down our watch and our, let's say, our gloves to fight against ICE. It's just that we think that they're using a different approach. 

So right now, what we are looking at is ICE activities in places that are not host cities or not close enough to the stadiums and coliseums because there's some, how you say it? There's some background, or it happened before, especially during the 2022 Qatar World Cup. There's a county in Texas that the sheriff targeted some Latino bars in the area. So again, coming back to the World Cup, we haven't seen a lot of the ICE activity they were mentioning closer to the stadiums or to the host cities, but we're keeping a look how that can look like in different counties, different areas, because we think that's part of their strategy, too. 

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