{"id":2779,"date":"2026-06-26T18:10:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2779"},"modified":"2026-06-26T18:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:10:59","slug":"world-cup-us-visa-policies-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2779","title":{"rendered":"World Cup visa denials the US\u2019s nightmarish immigration policies front and center"},"content":{"rendered":"


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While European tourists marvel at ranch dressing<\/a>, Buc-ee\u2019s, and other wonders of Middle America<\/a>, would-be World Cup attendees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have experienced a different American pastime: exclusion. President Donald Trump\u2019s nakedly racist immigration policies have prevented scores of people from traveling to the United States for the event \u2014 even, in some cases, the players themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Swiss forward Breel Embolo wasn\u2019t allowed to board<\/a> the team\u2019s flight to the US because of a criminal conviction from 2018 and had to apply for an emergency visa. In the wake of the US\u2019s attack on Iran<\/a>, the Iranian team moved its training base<\/a> from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico, after the State Department denied visas to several players. Customs and Border Protection agents detained Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein<\/a> at Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare Airport, where he was questioned for seven hours and had his phone searched. The team\u2019s photographer was also detained and was denied entry into the US. CBP denied entry to Omar Abdulkadir Artan<\/a>, who would have been the first Somali referee in World Cup history, because of \u201cvetting concerns,\u201d even though he had already been issued a visa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fans, too, have been turned away. One Scottish visitor had his travel authorization revoked<\/a> an hour before his flight took off. The Trump administration has justified these actions, emphasizing that traveling to the United States is a privilege, not a right \u2014 and suggesting that some of the athletes it has turned away are threats to America, despite being some of the world\u2019s most gifted soccer players.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin \u2014 who also threatened<\/a> to pull CBP from airports in so-called \u201csanctuary cities\u201d ahead of the World Cup \u2014 defended the visa denials, as did Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House task force for the World Cup. \u201cThe players, in particular, if it wasn\u2019t for the World Cup, they may not necessarily be allowed to enter the United States,\u201d Giuliani, the son of Rudy Giuliani, told CBS News<\/a>. Providing few details, Giuliani claimed that Artan, the Somali referee, was denied entry because officials discovered that he had been talking to \u201csome very bad people.\u201d Meanwhile, CBP officials have claimed that Artan was associated \u201cwith suspected members of terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jules Boykoff, author of Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine<\/em>, described the Trump administration\u2019s stance toward international travelers as an unusual break from World Cup practice. \u201cWhen you bought a ticket to the Russia men\u2019s World Cup in 2018 or the Qatar 2022 men\u2019s World Cup, that was tantamount to getting a visa,\u201d Boykoff said. \u201cYour ticket was your visa. That is definitely not happening with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Boykoff, a professor of political science at Pacific University, said the 2017 joint bid between Mexico, the US, and Canada for the World Cup promised that international travel would be smooth. In addition to claiming that fans would get free transportation to stadiums, the three countries promised that traveling across their borders would be easy for players and attendees alike.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who awarded Trump the first FIFA Peace Prize, claimed that traveling to the US would be smooth despite the president\u2019s immigration policies. \u201cEveryone will be welcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States for the FIFA World Cup next year,\u201d he said in 2025<\/a>. \u201cThis process will be smooth, and it will ensure that those that qualify will be able to come with their fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere were a lot of promises made that this was going to be smooth,\u201d Boykoff said. \u201cFIFA has this phrase that they overuse: \u2018Football united the world.\u2019 Well, Trump\u2019s policy here for the World Cup in regards to immigration and visas very much divides the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last December, the Trump administration issued stringent travel restrictions for nationals of 39 countries. Some \u2014 including Haiti and Iran, both of which are playing in the World Cup \u2014 have had visas banned entirely, while others, like Cote d\u2019Ivoire and Senegal, are subject to a \u201cpartial suspension\u201d on visa processing, including for tourists and business travelers. The ACLU issued a travel advisory<\/a> in April, warning travelers that the \u201cdeteriorating human rights conditions in the United States\u201d could lead to arbitrary denials of entry, arrests, detention, and deportation of travelers. A federal judge temporarily blocked the travel ban<\/a> in early June, but by that point it was too late for most fans to plan travel to the US, much less secure visas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Days before the World Cup began, Iran\u2019s federation had fan tickets revoked<\/a> for its three US games, preventing thousands of fans from attending matches in Los Angeles and Seattle. Compounding the problem, Iranian player Mehdi Torabi received a single-entry visa<\/a> to the US, meaning he wouldn\u2019t be able to return to the country after leaving. Giuliani, of the White House World Cup task force, told The Associated Press<\/em> that US officials worked with FIFA to ensure Iranian players can enter the country ahead of its matches. He added that some Iranian officials will be denied entry, saying, \u201cas you can imagine, there are some people that claim that they are coaches that may not be coaches,\u201d and implying that some people associated with the Iranian team have ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The US has since eased restrictions on the Iranian team<\/a>, allowing players to enter the country two days before its Friday match in Seattle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even fans from countries not on the travel ban list have had trouble securing visas. Abu Kass, head of the Jordanian fan association, told the BBC<\/a> that he took more than 42 documents to his visa appointment in Amman, only to have his application denied. \u201cIf the head of the fan association was refused,\u201d he asked, \u201cwho will be accepted?\u201d Kass said he only knows of one Jordanian fan who was issued a visa for the World Cup. Dozens of Moroccan fans \u2014 including members of the country\u2019s supporter associations \u2014 were reportedly<\/a> denied visas even though they had tickets to matches in the US. In light of these denials, a member of Morocco\u2019s parliament asked the country\u2019s foreign minister<\/a> to ask the US to provide transparent justifications for visa rejections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Infantino has effectively responded to all of this by telling everyone to calm down, and emphasizing that FIFA can\u2019t control any country\u2019s border policies. \u201cIt is unfortunate what happened to Omar, the referee from Somalia, but again we don\u2019t control everything,\u201d Infantino said<\/a> at a pre-World Cup press conference in Mexico City. \u201cWe try, we\u2019ll discuss, we\u2019ll see. Maybe sometimes it\u2019s good as well to chill, relax. We work on everything, we try to resolve everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But DHS has doubled down. Though the administration didn\u2019t make good on Mullin\u2019s threats to pull CBP from airports in sanctuary cities, border czar Tom Homan continues to hint that ICE will descend on New York<\/a>, and federal officials have said that ICE may be deployed to World Cup host cities<\/a> to help out local law enforcement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Todd Schulte, president of the immigration reform group FWD.us, said mass raids at stadiums are unlikely, but acknowledged that an increased ICE presence in host cities is likely to put immigrant communities on edge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re taking an all-of-government approach to going after immigrants, but less the Greg Bovino Call of Duty<\/em> kill squad approach,\u201d Schulte said. Instead, the administration is targeting people through the legal immigration system<\/a> by allowing ICE to engage in racial profiling<\/a>, and by stripping people of legal status. Schulte pointed to the Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision allowing Trump to rescind Temporary Protected Status for nationals of Syria and Haiti, which will make hundreds of thousands of people deportable with the stroke of a pen. Trump\u2019s approach to enforcement, Schulte said, is now more \u201cpervasive and bureaucratic\u201d than it was before. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to make it less visible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Communities in host cities are preparing for crackdowns. In Houston, volunteers with Organized Power in Numbers (OPIN) dressed as referees and handed out \u201cred cards\u201d to fans outside Shell Energy Stadium. These flyers informed people of their rights when interacting with ICE and other federal law enforcement \u2014 even if they\u2019re noncitizens. Volunteers also helped local business owners put up \u201cemployees only\u201d signs to ensure that parts of their businesses are inaccessible to law enforcement, and showed them how to recognize the difference between administrative and judicial warrants, the latter of which ICE rarely obtains.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mauricio Escobar, an organizer with OPIN, said ICE has ramped up its presence in Houston over the past year and said the group has been preparing for even more agents to flood the city during the World Cup. \u201cWe know that ICE and DHS will be here to act as overflow police, but that\u2019s not to say that they won\u2019t be doing other things,\u201d Escobar said, adding that OPIN is aware of racial profiling incidents involving ICE.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Like the Olympics, hosting the biggest event for the most popular global sport is supposed to be a boon for national pride. But Trump\u2019s stance on immigration has only become more aggressive since his return to office, and his second term has been characterized by an unprecedented crackdown on legal immigration, especially from countries he considers inferior. Given that the US, Canada, and Mexico started campaigning to host the World Cup in 2017, it\u2019s possible that no one \u2014 not even Trump himself \u2014 thought Trump would still be in office nearly a decade later, when the country would be actively inviting thousands of foreign nationals to its shores. Bringing people of all nationalities together in a single place is the whole point of the World Cup, but for the US president, the more important message seems to be that even at a celebratory global event, some people don\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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