Dallas-Fort Worth must support World Cup fans worried about Trump, ICE | Opinion
Arlington faces ominous headwinds as it prepares to host nine World Cup matches starting June 14. Unless the area makes clear its commitment to protecting human rights, global international soccer fans might vote with their feet, staying home in protest.
Countries hosting events like the World Cup customarily throw arms wide open for international travelers. In 2025 the World Trade Organization and or FIFA, the games’ governing body, estimated the event could pump as much as $47 billion into the U.S. economy.
However, because of numerous White House actions, the American tourist industry has suffered a severe “Trump Slump,” a 6.3% drop in international travel. Forbes magazine attributed the decline to the president’s “tariffs, America First rhetoric and immigration policies.”
Ever since President Trump’s out-of-the-blue threat in 2025 to turn Canada into the 51st state and the imposition of tariffs on that country, 23% of Canadian tourists scrubbed plans to visit the United States.
One Canadian, software developer Omar Hassan, is reselling his tickets to World Cup matches in New York and Boston because a cousin he planned to travel with is a Tanzanian national and thus subject to the administration’s travel ban on individuals entering the United States from 39 countries.
Having seen violence against migrants and protesters in Minneapolis and other American cities, Hassan said he also fears he might be racially profiled by U.S. Immigration and Customs officers if he attends the games.
“People who are brown-skinned like myself, that’s an extra risk,” Hassan told CNN. “What happens if you disappear for two weeks? It’s not something that is worth the risk.”
The brutality toward migrants and the violence by ICE officers in major American cities like Minneapolis have inspired calls for boycotts of World Cup games in the United States.
According to CNN, an online petition in the Netherlands demanding that the national team refuse to participate had garnered more than 174,000 signatures as of April 21. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and prominent Swiss attorney Mark Pieth have encouraged international fans to avoid travel to the United States for their own safety.
“Stay away from the USA!” Pieth told a Swiss newspaper. “You’ll see it better on TV anyway. And upon arrival, fans should expect that if they don’t please the officials, they’ll be put straight on the next flight home. If they’re lucky.”
In January, Blatter posted on social media, “I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup.”
As bad as the backlash has been, Gov. Greg Abbott seems determined to make it worse. Regardless of the international anger at the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants, Abbott has threatened to pull $150 million in grants from Austin, Dallas and Houston because of local policies restricting how the police departments support ICE actions.
Abbott’s action and the sorry treatment of those imprisoned at ICE detention centers in Texas can only make soccer fans around the world even more wary about spending their time and money in Arlington.
Amnesty International recently declared that the United States, which will host three quarters of this year’s World Cup games, is undergoing a “human rights emergency” and that the current political atmosphere in cities such as Arlington will endanger international visitors.
“This does not feel like ... the safe, free and equal World Cup and the inclusive World Cup that was promised eight years ago,” Steve Cockburn, Amnesty’s head of economic and social justice, told Reuters.
Abbott harshly curtailed what Arlington and surrounding cities can do to make visitors feel welcome.
With the eyes of the world on Texas, however, perhaps cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area can insist that their police officers avoid the racial profiling greenlighted in 2025 by the U.S. Supreme Court. They could also initiate special training for all local government officials and law enforcement based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.
Arlington and other cities in the area should also post Article 1 of the Declaration in public places:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
This represents a small gesture. But perhaps it might divert some of the ill winds blowing in from Washington and Austin that threaten the success of what has been called “the beautiful game.”
Dr. Michael Phillips is a retired college professor, historian and author who lives in Plano. Co-signing this column are Dr. Rick Halperin, director of the Human Rights Program at Southern Methodist University and Hadi Jawad, co-founder and president of Human Rights Dallas.
