{"id":193,"date":"2026-05-28T19:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=193"},"modified":"2026-05-28T19:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:08:07","slug":"if-ice-shows-up-at-the-world-cup-essential-service-workers-are-ready-to-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=193","title":{"rendered":"If ICE Shows Up at the World Cup, Essential Service Workers Are Ready to Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Read more Trump Nominee Refuses to Say If President Can or Cannot Do \u201cWhatever He Wants\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As the World Cup nears, Los Angeles\u2019s service workers \u2014 the people who staff hotels and keep the restaurants and bars going inside the city\u2019s big stadium \u2014 have threatened to go on strike if the tournament becomes hunting grounds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n

They have good reason to be worried. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has indicated that it may not routinely check attendees\u2019 immigration status, but it has fudged on the broader issue of ICE presence, saying its agents will be available at soccer games.<\/p>\n

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told Congress earlier this year that \u201cICE, specifically homeland security investigations, is a key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup.\u201d Newly appointed DHS head Markwayne Mullin has told agents to be prepared to be \u201cout there every day.\u201d Yet, faced with lagging hotel bookings around the country for the World Cup and the risk that international fans will be scared off by reports of preparations for heavy-handed ICE actions, DHS officials have also been trying to assure host cities that they won\u2019t be making arrests at the stadiums.<\/p>\n

Unite Here Local 11, which has had a long run of recent successes in its efforts to unionize hotels, airport concessions, and other parts of LA\u2019s hospitality industry, wants to force the issue. The union\u2019s leadership indicated last week that more than 2,000 workers are prepared to walk off the job at SoFi stadium should ICE agents show up during the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur members are super-charged about this,\u201d Kurt Petersen, co-president of the local, told Truthout<\/em>. \u201cThe threat to workers\u2019 safety is very real, and people are going to have to make decisions about what they\u2019re going to do.\u201d Petersen says several of the union\u2019s members have been detained during anti-immigration surges over the past year; while union lawyers have largely been successful in securing their release, the fear amongst immigrant workers \u2014 including those with documentation \u2014 is pervasive.<\/p>\n

Petersen didn\u2019t want to draw attention to individual cases, but he told Truthout<\/em> that just last week, a Unite Here member walked out of immigration court with his wife and their two young children, only to immediately be abducted by ICE. And recently, Petersen said workers at a Culver City hotel temporarily walked off their jobs when they found out that ICE agents were renting rooms inside. According to Petersen, the agents were gone, and the workers returned to their positions over the next days. (He was unwilling to name the hotel as, he said, he didn\u2019t want to draw attention to the workers there.)<\/p>\n

Seventy-year-old Yolanda Fierro, who has worked at SoFi stadium since it opened in 2020, serving as a \u201csuites runner\u201d \u2014 bringing food and drink to attendees who have tickets to watch matches in the suites \u2014 fears ICE will bring its racial profiling tactics into the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Calls Somali Americans \u201cCrooks\u201d in Racist Cabinet Rant<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you going to come to a stadium and terrorize our employees who have been trying to do their jobs since day one? And what about all the fans from all over the world? Are you going to target them? So, no, we don\u2019t need ICE there. ICE needs to go to the desert and melt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The knowledge that some of their colleagues have already been targeted by ICE is fueling some of the anger from stadium workers at the agency. \u201cIf ICE showed up, we would call a strike,\u201d Fierro says angrily. \u201cAnd if we\u2019re not there, who\u2019s going to man the stadium, do all the other stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n

The union local is seeking a commitment from FIFA, the governing body of the World Cup, that it won\u2019t cooperate with ICE. The union has also informed hotels and other venues connected to the World Cup that the presence of ICE agents would constitute \u201cunusually dangerous conditions\u201d and, according to the terms of its workers\u2019 collective bargaining agreement, would trigger the workers\u2019 right to refuse to work in such conditions. That could, potentially, lead to work stoppages beyond the SoFi stadium itself as the tournament gets underway.<\/p>\n

Unite Here Local 11\u2019s position against ICE being embedded in stadiums around the country comes after Amnesty International, the ACLU, and more than 120 other human rights organizations published a joint travel advisory warning World Cup visitors from overseas that they risk falling victims to the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cdraconian immigration and anti-human rights agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

For SoFi stadium workers such as 61-year-old LA native Eva Miles, who has worked as a bartender at the stadium since it opened, the preparations for World Cup have brought a mix of exhilaration and fear. She is happy that she can be at SoFi for the opening match, in which the U.S. plays Paraguay, on June 12. But she is worried that the match will turn into an anti-immigrant circus. \u201cI\u2019m hoping we can keep them out,\u201d she said of ICE. \u201cBecause there\u2019s no room for them to come in. It\u2019s a game and it\u2019s where everyone should have a fun time and enjoy themselves and not have to worry about getting arrested for things they have not done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles anticipates that the energy among the fans will already be intense as the tournament gets underway. \u201cWe don\u2019t need ICE to make it any crazier,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what can you do if they force their way in there?\u201d Then, she answered her own question. \u201cYes,\u201d she said when asked if she would strike. \u201cI would do it. We\u2019re rallying. We are all for keeping them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Biden-Era Advisors Who Oversaw Gaza Genocide Regroup to Shape Democratic Party Foreign Policy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hotel staff and food service workers who keep SoFi stadium functioning say they\u2019ll walk off the job if ICE is present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nIf ICE Shows Up at the World Cup, Essential Service Workers Are Ready to Strike - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=193\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If ICE Shows Up at the World Cup, Essential Service Workers Are Ready to Strike - 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