U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not be seen at World Cup matches this summer, according to Rodney Barreto, the co-chair of the Miami host committee.
Barreto said The Athletics Thursday that he received reassurance from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that ICE would avoid the world football show.
“ICE will not be in the stadium,” Barreto said The Athletics. “This isn’t going to turn into some ‘round them up’ kind of thing. That’s not the intention of this.
«It will be a great experience for everyone. I think we are lucky that we have a president who loves sports and has given us the resources to reimburse the cities for their police protection.»
Barreto added: «I’ve spoken to Marco and first and foremost he’s going to make sure that the passports are processed and that people can get here and there. There’s an orderly process so that people aren’t held up. It’s going to be a major undertaking for the federal government to do that. We feel very comfortable that we’re going to be in good hands.»
ICE’s use of immigration enforcement raids has increased since Donald Trump began his second term as president last year, sparking a major political debate in the US.
South Florida’s role as a host market for the World Cup also comes against the backdrop of scenes from the 2024 Copa America championship match, when fans stormed the gates of the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, causing a number of injuries and delaying the start of the Argentina-Colombia match.
“(The Miami World Cup organizing committee) took the position that we did not want to be ‘critical of the planners of that event,’ Barreto said. The Athletics. «It was not our event. But now that that time has passed, I would like to tell you where the failure was, which was that there were no boundaries.
«People without tickets shouldn’t have been anywhere near the entrance to that stadium. It didn’t take much to overwhelm an entrance. But listen, you learn from all these events, and you learn to do better and come up with different scenarios that can prevent this from happening in the future. So that’s where we are now.»
Published on May 8, 2026
