ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Service) will not be present at the World Cup games, according to the co-president of the Miami organizing committee.
Rodney Barreto told The Athletic on Thursday (7) that he has received assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that ICE will stay away from the event.
“ICE will not be at the stadium,” said Barreto. “This is not going to turn into a ‘arrest everyone’ operation. That’s not the goal.”
“It will be a great experience for everyone. I think we are lucky to have a president who loves sports and who has given us the resources to reimburse cities for police protection.”
Barreto added: “I spoke with Marco and, first of all, he will ensure that passports are processed and that people can get here in an organized manner, without delays. It will be a great effort by the federal government to achieve this. We are very confident that we will be in good hands.”
The use of ICE in immigration enforcement operations has increased since Donald Trump began his second term as president last year, sparking an important political debate in the United States.
South Florida’s role as host of the World Cup also comes amid memories of scenes from the 2024 Copa América final, when fans stormed the gates of the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, causing multiple injuries and delaying the start of the match between Argentina and Colombia.
“(The Miami World Cup organizing committee) took the position that we didn’t want to criticize the organizers of that event,” Barreto told The Athletic. “It wasn’t our event. But now that time has passed, I would say the fault was the absence of defined boundaries.”
“People without tickets shouldn’t be anywhere near the entrances to that stadium. It wasn’t hard to break into an entrance. But look, you learn from all these events and you learn to do better by creating different scenarios that prevent this from happening in the future. So that’s where we are.”
