AMERICA WANTS THE WORLD TO VISIT - BUT DOES THE WORLD WANT TO COME?
A large model of the World Cup trophy being revealed during the last World Cup’s Opening Ceremony in Doha, Qatar, on November 21, 2022.
Photo Credit: Ronny Przysucha
On January 24, the United States (U.S.) woke up to the news that Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse, was fatally shot by border patrol agents. What would’ve been an outlandish headline not too long ago was now entirely predictable in U.S. President Donald Trump's America. While many expected such an incident to occur – a mother of three was shot to death less than a month before by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – what was horrifying were the blatantly false statements made by the administration before any information was available. Video breakdowns from the New York Times show Alex Pretti protecting a woman as she’s harassed by ICE agents. As a result, he’s pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground while the agents take his gun (which he was legally permitted to carry in the state of Minnesota). Despite the “threat” clearly being apprehended, they then shoot him fatally at least 10 times.
No haziness, no mystery, no confusion: immigration officers executed Alex Pretti. Yet, if there hadn’t been videos, if we'd only heard from the administration, we would get a very different story. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel claimed that Pretti had “attacked” border patrol agents. In a post retweeted by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller referred to him as an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents.” Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said it “looks like Pretti wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The videos show these claims to be blatant lies. What the administration fails to understand is violence does not exist in a vacuum; it’s being watched and judged not just by Americans, but by the international community the U.S. is about to invite onto its soil for the FIFA World Cup.
Vice President JD Vance retweets U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller's tweet calling Alex Pretti an “assassin.” Miller has repeatedly been one of the biggest voices behind the current administration's immigration policy.
That same international community also sees that Pretti’s death wasn’t an isolated event, as just 17 days before he was shot, Renee Good was also fatally shot by ICE. In released footage, she waves a vehicle through and then tries to let another pass before several agents rush her car. As she panics and moves the vehicle away, an officer stands in its path (making no attempt to move) and fires multiple shots from the side window, killing her. Any argument about the officer fearing for his life is dispelled when he calls her a “fucking bitch.”
So what did the administration do in response? Surely the President wouldn’t react partisanly before any information was available right? Well, the “President of Peace” decided the best response was to say Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.” He then states that it was “hard to believe" the ICE officer was alive. Noem called her a domestic terrorist. Notwithstanding that these comments insult the intelligence of anyone who watched videos of the event, this also begs the question, why have the ICE officers’ hospital records still not been released? The obvious answer is that proof the officer sustained no injuries contradicts their self-defense claim.
Beyond just Pretti and Good, a study done by ProPublica last October found that ICE had detained at least 170 American citizens, the number almost certainly much higher now. While the current administration may think they’ll be able to sweep such blatant and unnecessary actions from ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the rug by removing Bovino, who became the face of these operations, there is little evidence that immigration agents are backing away from this aggressive approach to protesters and detainees. Under mounting pressure, the U.S. Justice Department has said they will investigate the shootings, after originally promising only to investigate the victims, but no rational person can expect those probes to be fair. With the U.S. hosting the World Cup this summer, one unintended consequence of Trump’s campaign against immigrants and his hostility toward European allies may be that the world simply decides not to come.
We’ve already seen this sentiment begin to spread. Oke Göttlich, the president of Bundesliga club St. Pauli and one of the German federation's 10 vice presidents, called for a boycott of the World Cup because of President Trump's actions. Göttlich compared the situation to that of the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott of the USSR saying, “What were the justifications for the boycotts of the Olympic Games in the 1980s?...By my reckoning the potential threat is greater now than it was then. We need to have this discussion.”
In addition to Göttlich, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has also publicly announced his support for a proposed boycott. In a post from Mark Pieth, former Chair of the Independent Governance Committee's oversight of FIFA, Pieth stated: “Stay away from the USA! You’ll see it better on TV anyway. And upon arrival, fans should expect that if they don’t please the officials, they’ll be put straight on the next flight home. If they’re lucky.” Blatter, clearly agreeing with this shot at Trump’s immigration policy, quoted the interview adding “I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup.”
Sepp Blatter, former FIFA president, quoting Mark Pieth and expressing his agreement that the U.S. World Cup should be questioned. He makes it clear who the tweet is directed at by including #DonaldTrump.
Pieth and Blatter's comments are entirely logical. Think about the issue from a foreigner's perspective: if you saw immigration officers continually violate the individual rights of both citizens and non-citizens what conclusion would you draw? This deduction is even more reasonable given the fact that the Supreme Court essentially greenlit ICE to racially profile anyone they want. Why would you take the risk travelling to America just to be beaten, detained or possibly killed because of your race?
The unpopularity of the administration's immigration policy isn’t just limited to the World Cup; it's also damaging America’s reputation in the Olympics. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security announced that ICE agents would accompany the U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics in Italy.
This announcement sparked widespread outrage in Italy, with Italy's foreign minister saying that ICE would not be allowed to deploy on the streets. Giuseppe Sala, the mayor of Milan, made the feelings of foreigners (and many U.S. citizens) clear, stating that “bringing to Milan a militia which distinguished itself — this is not my opinion — with criminal acts, which kills, which enters in the homes of American citizens without authorization, I do not think that that is a good idea.”
Even if the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge the reality of having unidentified, undisciplined, poorly trained men playing dress-up while killing and detaining U.S. citizens, they can’t ignore the world, or the world will simply ignore them. When even a journalist like Don Lemon is arrested for simply covering an anti-ICE protest inside a Minnesota church, it sends a chilling message that disagreement with Trump’s immigration policy is unsafe.
It’s possible the administration could tone down its approach to immigration enough for the world to feel temporarily safe visiting. However, one bell that cannot be unrung is the hurricane of footage revealing a government-sanctioned capacity for cruelty in modern America. If you told a foreigner 20 years ago that out of World Cups hosted in South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and Qatar, arguably the most dangerous one to attend would be in America, they wouldn’t believe you. Yet here we are, the tournament set to go on, for now, as immigration officers operate far beyond the pale of established American law enforcement norms.