Click to expand Image FIFA President Gianni Infantino and US President Donald Trump on stage during the FIFA World Cup 2026 official draw on December 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. © 2025 Photo by Tasos Katopodis - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images (Berlin) – The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup is unfolding against a backdrop of abusive immigration enforcement in the United States, new threats to media freedom, discrimination, and unmet human rights commitments by FIFA and host cities, Human Rights Watch said today, releasing a “Reporters’ Guide” for journalists covering the tournament. The tournament will open on June 11, 2026, across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico, and the US.The 79-page “Reporters’ Guide for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Canada, Mexico, and the United States” summarizes Human Rights Watch findings on human rights conditions across all three host countries and the particular risks that the US government’s policies pose to journalists, fans, players, and immigrant communities. The guide describes FIFA’s weak response to the human rights risks posed by the US President Donald Trump administration’s abuse of immigrants and its failure to meet its human rights commitments for the tournament.“This was supposed to be the first-ever World Cup with a human rights framework: key protections for workers, fans, players, and communities,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, the US administration’s brutal immigration crackdown, discriminatory policies, and threats to press freedom mean the tournament risks being defined by exclusion and fear.”The US will host the vast majority of World Cup matches, 78, including the semi-finals and final. Since taking office in January 2025, Donald Trump has rolled out abusive policies and actions targeting immigrants, protesters, human rights defenders, transgender people, and civil society. Fans from dozens of countries face visa bans.People from immigrant communities who gather in stadiums or fan zones to celebrate their national teams and heritage may be at heightened risk of abuse. Also at risk are people that officers perceive as immigrants based on their skin color, spoken language, or place of work. From January 20, 2025, to March 10, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested at least 167,000 people in and around the 11 US cities where games will be played, based on ICE data provided in response to a freedom of information request to the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by Human Rights Watch.Media freedom in the US is also under intense new pressure. Concerning cases include the arrest and detention of Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist, in Atlanta, a World Cup city, in June 2025. He was arrested reportedly for filming a political protest, transferred to ICE custody, and deported to El Salvador. In March 2026, Estefany Rodríguez, a journalist who had been covering ICE immigration raids, was reportedly arrested without her captors presenting a warrant. Human Rights Watch has documented that US officers have fired tear gas, pepper balls, hard foam rounds, and flash-bang grenades directly at protesters, journalists, and other observers, often at close range and often without sufficient warning or provocation.FIFA has done little to respond to these risks. All but one of the World Cup host city committees have failed to present the human rights action plans FIFA promised ahead of the tournament or have produced plans that ignore or fail to adequately address risks, including those faced by immigrants, LGBT people, and journalists.FIFA itself has not made meaningful efforts to use its leverage to push the Trump administration to roll back or pause abusive policies. Instead, in December 2025, it awarded Trump the first FIFA Peace Prize. Human Rights Watch has urged FIFA to work to convince the Trump administration to establish an “ICE Truce,” that includes a public guarantee from federal authorities to refrain from immigration enforcement operations at games and venues.“The 2026 World Cup risks becoming a sportswashing bonanza for the Trump administration,” Worden said. “FIFA needs to take more effective steps to protect athletes, fans, and workers from the US government’s abusive policies.”The 2026 World Cup is the first to span three countries, creating unprecedented logistical challenges for the media professionals expected to cover it. Journalists will be crossing international borders with different immigration regimes, visa requirements, and media freedom environments, in some cases multiple times over the course of the tournament.Mexico remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the media. The press freedom organization Article 19 reported that seven journalists were killed in Mexico in 2025. Impunity for such killings remains the norm. Its Congress passed a law in 2025 that grants the authorities virtually unlimited power to access information about citizens without judicial authorization, affecting media freedom. FIFA has not addressed direct risks to journalists working in Mexico’s World Cup host cities, including reporters covering possible intersections between soccer/football and organized crime.Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA President Gianni Infantino on April 6 with detailed questions about media freedom protections, including whether FIFA has established protocols to respond if journalists are detained, deported, or denied entry, and whether FIFA will commit to holding regular conferences open to all media throughout the tournament.FIFA responded that it “has in place mechanisms and procedures to respond to any human rights or safeguarding-related incident, including those involving journalists.”“Journalists covering this World Cup will have no shortage of stories, if they can access the tournament and if they can report freely,” Worden said. “The ‘Reporters’ Guide’ is designed to make sure media have what they need to cover not just the matches, but everything happening outside the stadium walls.”