![\"Workers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6a21f73514000000011adf52.jpeg\")
Workers protest outside SoFi Stadium ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Inglewood, California, on May 18, 2026. Members of Unite Here Local 11 are fighting to keep ICE out of their workplace during the tournament.<\/p>\n
Frederic J. Brown\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In addition to economic issues, the ever-present threat of federal immigration agents in Los Angeles has loomed over negotiations, which are set to continue on Monday. <\/p>\n
When federal agents descended on the city last year, hundreds of SoFi workers stayed home, Fierro told HuffPost last month. The stadium is located near a Home Depot and an El Super grocery store, both of which are frequent sites of immigration raids. Workers alerted one another to suspicious sightings in the parking lot and avoided walking into and out of the stadium alone. <\/p>\n
Fears about being snatched up by masked federal agents escalated in February, when then-acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Todd Lyons testified before Congress that ICE would play a \u201ckey part<\/a>\u201d in security at the World Cup. In response, Unite Here Local 11 workers called on FIFA and stadium owner Kroenke Sports & Entertainment to commit that ICE and Border Patrol would have no presence at the tournament and warned<\/a> that they were prepared to strike if their demands were not met. <\/p>\n On a Monday morning in May, Unite Here Local 11 workers gathered with \u201cKICK ICE OUT!\u201d signs and inflatable soccer balls in front of the manmade lake just south of the stadium to hold a press conference ahead of a bargaining session with their employer, Legends Global. <\/p>\n Kurt Petersen, a co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said that just the week before, one of their members had \u201cwalked out of a routine courthouse check-in and into an ICE ambush.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cHis wife begged for freedom because they wanted to take her, too. They put her in an ankle bracelet and let her go. Their 6-year-old and 2-year-old watched their parents terrorized by ICE. All of this for daring to live and work in the city they call home,\u201d Petersen said. <\/p>\n Petersen later told HuffPost that the member had filed a habeas petition with the help of a lawyer paid for through the union\u2019s legal defense fund. He is aware of about a dozen Local 11 members who have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump returned to office, all of whom have been released with the help of attorneys hired through the union\u2019s legal fund, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cFIFA runs a soccer tournament, not Los Angeles … No one gave FIFA the power to decide who is safe and who is hunted.\u201d<\/p>\n – Kurt Petersen, co-president Unite Here Local 11<\/p>\n Workers acknowledge that Legends Global doesn\u2019t have the ability to restrict ICE activity \u2014 but they view the World Cup as a critical opportunity to pressure FIFA and the federal government by threatening to withhold their labor during a mega-event from which FIFA stands to reap enormous profits. <\/p>\n FIFA did not respond to a request for comment, but the organization\u2019s president, Gianni Infantino, has previously aligned himself with Trump. Last year, he attended Trump\u2019s inauguration<\/a>, visited the president\u2019s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, and awarded<\/a> Trump FIFA\u2019s inaugural \u201cPeace Prize.\u201d <\/p>\n A DHS spokesperson said in an email that Homeland Security Investigations special agents \u201cwill be present at airports and around FIFA 2026 sites to support security operations\u201d and that \u201ctheir presence is focused on safeguarding the event and supporting public safety, not checking the immigration status of attendees at event venues.\u201d<\/p>\n