Tournament attendees should be ready for "violent and unconstitutional immigration enforcement, including racial profiling," civil society groups say.Mother Jones illustration; Getty(2)
We’re less than a week away from the first match of the FIFA Men’s World Cup, with tensions mounting over the United States’ role as one of the host countries, and it remains to be seen just how the Department of Homeland Security will respond to what it deems threats—or how active ICE will be at the tournament.
On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News that “every single” agency would be on site. “We’re going to have facial recognition, right. If we have people coming in that’s on the terrorist watchlist, we’re going to collapse on them. That’s not going to [just] be ICE, that could be state police that collapse on them. We’re all working together.”
ICE’s facial recognition systems can misidentify people and generate false matches—and the agency reportedly places smartphone-based facial recognition matches ahead of physical evidence including birth certificates.
Perhaps to counter potential criticisms, Mullin stated that ICE will be there “not for immigration, but for terrorist threats” and that “for years, ICE has been around and no one knew who they were.”
Several cities hosting World Cup matches have announced that they would not cooperate with ICE enforcement, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Seattle. On Monday, LA County Sheriff Robert Luna claimed that Mullin personally told him that federal agents would not conduct civil immigration enforcement “at any of the games.” But the federal government has increasingly deployed the criminal legal system against people they allege to have violated immigration law, with little regard for their alleged offenses and despite the fact that unauthorized presence in the US is a civil offense, not a criminal one.
Even giving Mullin the benefit of the doubt—which may not be the best move—his statement leaves ample room for loopholes: will it apply between games? To areas outside the stadiums? That uncertainty impacts fans, visitors, families of players, journalists—all of whom face a heightened risk of human rights violations, according to a joint travel advisory issued by more than 120 civil society groups in April. Among the risks listed in their press release:
- Arbitrary denial of entry and risk of arrest, detention and/or deportation
- Expanded restrictions and limitation on travel and entry to the U.S.
- Invasive social media screening and searches of electronic devices
- Violent and unconstitutional immigration enforcement, including racial profiling
- Suppression of speech and protest and increased surveillance
- Cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment – and even death – while in ICE detention or custody
Given that ominous warning—and the Trump administration’s tendency to label political opponents and immigrants of all stripes as “criminal aliens,” “domestic terrorists,” or otherwise dangerous—a secondhand verbal promise that there will be no civil immigration enforcement is not reassuring.
