‘Our fans are feeling in fear’: One year out from the World Cup, Mexico supporters are avoiding matches due to ICE concerns

Mexico’s game against the Dominican Republic on Saturday saw almost 10,000 fewer fans in attendance than the team’s average at SoFi Stadium over the last year.

When the Mexico men’s national soccer team comes to Los Angeles, you tend to know about it. In March, when Javier Aguirre’s team beat Panama 2-1, 68,212 people packed the stands at SoFi Stadium. Before June 14, the average attendance across the three games that El Tri had played in Inglewood in the last year was 63,760. “We fill every single stadium because we want to feel closer to Mexico,” says Paco Rubén, founder and coordinator of US-based Mexico national team supporters’ group Cielito Lindo, in an interview with CNN Sports. “It doesn’t matter if you’re documented or not, we just want to feel that we’re in Mexico for a day and live that party.” That all changed on June 14. Amid the backdrop of the Trump administration’s federal immigration sweeps – and the resulting protests in LA and across the US – only 54,309 were at SoFi for Mexico’s 3-2 victory over the Dominican Republic in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, almost 10,000 fewer than Mexico’s average at SoFi over the last 12 months. The attendance was just 4,000 more than the record low at SoFi for El Tri, which came against Canada on a Thursday evening in March when the team had not won back-to-back games for nearly two years.