Amnesty International on Monday urged FIFA, national football associations and sponsors of the 2026 FIFA World Cup will ensure that the human rights of fans, players, journalists, workers and local communities are safeguarded during the tournament, which begins on June 11 in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The human rights group reminded host countries of their obligations under international human rights law and noted the ongoing “acute human rights crisis” in host countries:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and other agencies were transformed into a paramilitary operation in which masked, armed federal agents broke down doors and entered homes without warrants and arbitrarily arrested, detained, abused, and killed community members across the United States.
Amnesty quantified ICE abuses and detailed how 43 people died in ICE custody between January 2025 and March 2026. The group reported on the ICE killings of Renée Good, Keith Porter, Ruben Ray Martinez, Silverio Villegas González and Alex Pretti during operations in major cities across the county, as well as the 500,000 people deported from the United States in 2025.
The group noted that the agency has “signed 1,544… agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, including in the World Cup host cities of Dallas, Houston and Miami, that assign their officers to enforce immigration law and allow the use of local jails to detain immigrants.”
Amnesty expressed concern about a lack of guarantees from US authorities that immigrant communities participating in the games would be protected from ethnic profiling, unlawful detention and deportation. Fans from Ivory Coast, Haiti, Iran and Senegal likely won’t be able to travel to the U.S. to support their teams, and other fans may face intrusive surveillance and have to ensure their social media accounts do not promote “anti-Americanism.”
The group also warned of a decline in journalistic freedom in the United States and Mexico. At least one journalist – Mario Guevara – was deported from the US after reporting on ICE operations. Seven journalists were reportedly killed in Mexico in 2025 in retaliation for their reporting, and Reporters Without Borders called the country the most dangerous country in the world for members of the press.
The right to peaceful assembly was also impaired in all three host countries. In 2025, the Trump administration revoked the visas of 8,000 students, some of whom had protested Israeli occupation and military actions in the Gaza Strip. In Canada, some cities have established restricted areas for lawful protests by creating “exclusion zones.”
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to be the biggest and most lucrative yet, expected to bring in $11 billion.
