Less than a month before the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off across North America, hospitality staff at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium — one of the tournament’s key U.S. host venues — have drawn a hard line, vowing to walk off the job if federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are granted access to the facility during matches.
Represented by UNITE HERE Local 11, the roughly 2,000 food and beverage, cleaning, and concession workers behind the threat are pushing for two binding guarantees: first, that ICE will not conduct any operations or deploy personnel at the stadium during the eight World Cup matches scheduled there, and second, that FIFA will not share workers’ personal data collected for tournament accreditation with ICE, foreign governments, or intelligence agencies.
For the largely immigrant workforce that keeps the $5 billion arena running, an ICE presence inside the stadium is not just a logistical disruption—it is a direct threat to their safety and peace of mind. Speaking at a Monday protest outside SoFi Stadium, cook Isaac Martinez, speaking on behalf of the bargaining unit, laid out the workers’ core concern. “ICE should have no role in these games,” Martinez said. “We do not want to live in fear coming to work, or fear being detained going home.” Without a satisfactory agreement from event organizers and local officials, Martinez added, the workforce is fully prepared to launch strike action that would disrupt tournament operations.
Workers’ concerns are rooted in a long pattern of controversial and violent enforcement actions by ICE. The agency became the face of aggressive immigration crackdowns during the Donald Trump administration, and human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned its conduct during widespread raids across U.S. cities, including a major operation in Los Angeles last year. Most recently, early in 2026, ICE agents fatally shot two civilian protesters during an operation in Minneapolis, intensifying widespread criticism of the agency’s aggressive tactics.
Beyond ICE deployment, workers have also raised alarms about FIFA’s mandatory accreditation process, which requires all venue staff to submit extensive personal information ahead of the month-long tournament, which runs from June 11 to July 19 across 16 host cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Worker Yolanda Fierro emphasized that staff have no guarantee their sensitive data will not be misused, calling on FIFA to commit explicitly to not sharing information with immigration enforcement bodies.
The workers’ protest has already drawn high-profile political backing from Tom Steyer, a leading Democratic candidate in California’s upcoming gubernatorial race, who joined demonstrators outside the stadium Monday. Carrying signs reading “Kick ICE Out of the World Cup” and plastic soccer balls, protesters got a firm show of support from the candidate, who questioned the agency’s presence at a global sporting event. “ICE’s mandate is border control,” Steyer said. “Can anyone explain what that has to do with the World Cup? Nothing. How is it possible that this is the agency that is going to be here when we know in fact they’re an absolute threat, a lawless threat, to workers in California?”
As of Monday, neither FIFA nor event organizers had issued a formal response to the workers’ demands, leaving the threat of a strike hanging over one of the World Cup’s highest-profile U.S. venues.