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US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) agents are expected to conduct immigration enforcement operations during next month’s Super Bowl game in Santa Clara, California.
Local officials confirmed to media that ICE is expected to deploy for the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations team has long worked the Super Bowl and other major sporting events, largely focused on preventing human trafficking and stopping the sale of counterfeit goods, but immigration operations would be unusual.
“We have heard from the administration that they intend to have ICE at the Super Bowl. I don’t know how much of that is rhetoric,” Matt Mahan, the San Jose mayor, told KTVU.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declined to confirm reports about operations around Levi’s Stadium on 8 February, writing in a statement that the agency does “not disclose future operations or discuss personnel”.
“DHS is committed to working with our local and federal partners to ensure the Super Bowl is safe for everyone involved, as we do with every major sporting event, including the World Cup,” said DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin, adding that security for the event would include a response “conducted in-line with the US constitution”.
“Those who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.”
The move, which comes as the administration faces mounting criticism over its immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota and the killings of two US citizens by federal agents, has caused concern in the community, particularly for vulnerable families.
“It’s going to increase the level of tension and fear in our area,” Peter Ortiz of the San Jose city council told the San José Spotlight. “We’re already seeing that they are scared to go out to eat, scared to go to the local corner store, scared to send their kids to school.”
Corey Lewandowski, an adviser to the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, announced last fall that agents would conduct operations during the Super Bowl.
“There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally, not the Super Bowl, and nowhere else,” Lewandowski said on the Benny Johnson podcast. “We will find you, we will apprehend you, we will put you in a detention facility and we will deport you.”
Noem also confirmed ICE operations at the game during an interview with that same podcaster.
“We’ll be all over that place,” she said. “We’re gonna enforce the law so I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they are law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
The agency has collaborated with the NFL for two decades, according to a DHS statement, and sent nearly 700 employees to New Orleans last year to aid in security for the event, and “intellectual property enforcement”.
But Trump administration officials have derided the NFL as “woke” and criticized the decision to have Bad Bunny perform at this year’s half-time show. The Puerto Rican artist, who will perform along with Green Day, opted not to include US stops on his latest tour over concerns his fans could face ICE raids.
Donald Trump described the half-time show entertainment this year as a “terrible choice” and said he will not attend the game.
