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Dear John,
This week, NIAC urged the Trump administration [[link removed]] to ensure that Iranian players, team staff, and fans can participate in the 2026 World Cup.
On the surface, it’s about soccer.
In reality, it’s about whether Iranians are allowed to exist in the public global sphere at all – or whether our community is once again shut out through travel bans, visa denials, and policies designed to isolate and dehumanize.
The World Cup is one of the rare moments where borders soften – where people-to-people connection, cultural exchange, and shared humanity are supposed to take precedence over politics. For decades, these kinds of exchanges have been one of the most powerful forms of soft diplomacy: keeping doors open, preventing isolation, and resisting the logic that entire peoples should be treated as threats.
Yet even this global event is now under threat from the same discriminatory immigration policies that have defined the last year for Iranian Americans and other immigrant communities in the U.S.
This isn’t abstract for us.
This year alone, NIAC has intervened in cases where Iranian families faced sudden detention, deportation, or separation – including during the holiday season. We’ve stepped in when visas were revoked without explanation, when loved ones disappeared into ICE custody, and when government secrecy made accountability nearly impossible. Through rapid response, legal action, media pressure, and direct support, we’ve helped keep families together and forced these abuses into the light.
Our efforts on the World Cup are part of that same struggle.
When our government blocks Iranians from traveling, competing, studying, or even attending a global cultural event, it sends a clear message: you are not welcome, your presence is conditional, and your humanity is negotiable. NIAC exists to push back against that message – in immigration courtrooms, in the media, and in the halls of power.
But we cannot do this without you. DONATE TO SUPPORT THIS WORK [[link removed]] There is no corporation or government waiting in the wings to protect our community. This work only continues because people like you step up.Right now, we’ve raised $62,636 of our $250,000 end-of-year goal. [[link removed]] Closing this gap will determine how much protection, legal defense, and rapid response we can provide in the critical months ahead.
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If you’re able, please make a gift before December 31. [[link removed]] Your donation directly fuels immigration defense, crisis response, and the fight to ensure Iranians are not isolated, erased, or pushed into the shadows. DONATE TODAY [[link removed]] With urgency and gratitude Jamal Abdi NIAC President[[link removed]]
P.S. Please join us on Sunday, December 21st at 8pm ET / 5pm PT on Zoom to celebrate Yalda [[link removed]] , the ancient Winter Solstice celebration of Iranian culture. We’re honored to welcome Aria Fani, Professor of Persian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle, as our special guest. We would truly love to share this moment with you.unsubscribe: [link removed]