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I just wrapped a live report from the “No ICE in My Cup” Free DC rally at the Kennedy Center, where the World Cup draw was happening today. Inside, FIFA was celebrating a global moment of unity. Outside, fans, families, and community leaders gathered to push back on the Trump administration’s plan to deploy ICE and federal law enforcement around next year’s World Cup events.
This wasn’t just a soccer protest. It was a warning.
The World Cup is one of the few bright spots we have right now, a global celebration that brings millions together. But the administration is trying to turn it into a stage for fear, intimidation, and political theater. If ICE shows up at games, the impact won’t just be on immigrant communities. It will hit our cities, our local economies, our reputation, and the very spirit of what this event is supposed to represent.
Fans shouldn’t have to worry about checkpoints and deportation vans when they’re just trying to watch a match. Cities shouldn’t lose billions in expected revenue because families are too afraid to show up. And the U.S. shouldn’t be broadcasting to the world that our national identity is now rooted in hostility and exclusion.
And then there’s the spectacle that happened inside the Kennedy Center today: FIFA handing Donald Trump a “peace prize.”
Peace? This isn’t about peace. It’s about appeasement. After failing to snag the Nobel Prize he openly campaigned for, FIFA’s Gianni Infantino simply invented one for him [ [link removed] ]—an award so hastily created that even senior FIFA officials didn’t know it existed until the press release was drafted. It’s less “global honor” and more “please don’t blow up the World Cup.”
The absurdity speaks for itself: the U.S. president who has threatened to strip cities of World Cup matches, tightened visa access, and greenlit ICE operations around games is now being honored for “uniting the world.”
Instead of protecting the integrity of the tournament, FIFA is rewarding the man most likely to politicize and endanger it. It’s not diplomacy, it’s desperation wrapped in gold plating.
And here’s the part we need to be brutally honest about: unless there is sustained public and political pressure, this administration is going to do this.
All indicators point toward ICE deployment being part of Trump’s 2026 immigration and “law and order” theater. This isn’t about safety, it’s enforcement as performance. And the World Cup is the largest global stage they’ll have before the 2026 midterm elections. If the goal is to create fear, dominance, and headlines, they couldn’t ask for a bigger audience.
Today’s protest made something very clear: Voters are not letting hate hijack the World Cup. Not in our cities. Not in our communities. Not in our name.
Keep showing up!
More soon,
Olivia

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