For 90 minutes in Philadelphia, the Haitians were back home.
Outside Lincoln Financial Field, vendors sold griot and patties from food trucks as Creole floated through the humid afternoon air. Families arrived draped in blue and red flags. Children who had never lived in Haiti knew every word of “La Dessalinienne,” the national anthem.
The team ultimately lost to Brazil, but the result felt almost irrelevant.
For a country that has endured political violence, earthquakes and humanitarian crises, simply returning to the World Cup had become a celebration of survival. Many of those in the stands had traveled not from Port-au-Prince, but from Brooklyn, Miami, Boston and Montreal. They brought with them two houses: one that they had left behind and one that they had built in the United States of America.
The expanded 48-team World Cup not only introduced new soccer nations but also reunited immigrant communities across North America. Each match has become a kind of family reunion, with flags that have been stored away for years reappearing.
Dallas, home to one of the largest and most active West African populations in the United States, welcomed the Ivory Coast team with the Abidjan Farot Welcome Party on the eve of the round of 16. «My son has never been to Abidjan or anywhere else in Ivory Coast. So I brought him here so he could feel part of the nation. We are incredibly proud of our team for connecting us in this World Cup,» said N’Guessan, who flew in from Atlanta with his four-year-old son and frantically waved a «Welcome to Dallas» sign as the likes of Amad Diallo and Yan Diamonde happily posed for selfies and signed autographs.
Tanya Marie surprised her mother, Chilemb Munung, with World Cup tickets to watch the Democratic Republic of Congo play Portugal at Houston Stadium. «To go there and represent my country to be seen. It was just… I can’t even express to myself what I felt there, but it was like, oh my God,» Chilemb said after the match.
For ninety minutes, football dissolved the distance between where these communities came from and where they live now.
But some supporters never made it to the stadiums.
Many fans were denied visas, while teams and officials from countries such as Iran and Iraq faced entry complications. Iran spent much of the tournament preparing across the border in Tijuana before crossing on match days due to complications entering and staying in the United States. Omar Artan, a referee from Somalia, was sent home from Miami Airport before the World Cup started, while Iraqi player Aymen Hussein was detained and interrogated for nearly seven hours by US Customs and Border Protection at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
On June 25, the US Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with ending temporary protected status for Haiti and Syria, opening the door to the loss of legal protections for thousands of people. Introduced by Congress in 1990, the program has allowed people from countries experiencing war, political instability or natural disasters to remain in the United States.
For many Haitian supporters, the timing could hardly have been worse.
Days after their country stood shoulder to shoulder with Brazil, families who had lived in the United States for years faced new uncertainty.
“The injustice of the justice system affects more than 375,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians who have lived in the United States for the past 3, 5, 10, 15 years. They are the people who have come here seeking safety and protection from the extreme conditions that have long plagued Haiti since the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people and completely destroyed the country. chaos,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
While the June 30 U.S. Supreme Court order blocking President Donald Trump’s attempt to end the birthright rights of children born illegally or temporarily to people in the United States provided reassurance to U.S.-born children, it did nothing to eliminate the uncertainty Haitian parents face about the possible loss of temporary protected status.
This World Cup has given the diaspora a rare public stage to celebrate where it comes from. Now many within those same communities are forced to defend their place in the land where they built new lives.
Published on July 2, 2026
