Fanbases in America’s top soccer league are increasingly at odds with the teams they support over a lack of response to the raids on immigrant communities carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A new report from Rolling Stone details how fan groups from league mainstays like the LA Galaxy and Chicago Fire are boycotting their teams for not issuing any statements of support for Latino communities targeted by ICE, as well as for how those organizations have responded to fans that have demonstrated against the federal agency from the stands during games.
During the first LA Galaxy home game since ICE descended on Los Angeles in June, the team’s Angel City Brigade (ACB) supporter group decided to bring a discussion that had been brewing online over the lack of response from the team into the real world, unfurling a giant banner with the slogan “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants.” Twelve minutes into the game, having stood with the banner silently without engaging in their usual chants, ACB members walked out. “We wanted to match their silence,” ACB leader Gloria Jiménez, who has supported the club for decades, told Rolling Stone. “They didn’t announce any proactive plans to protect our immigrant fans or tell us which charities they were supporting. So we left the game. Just like they left us.”
The only response so far from most clubs is to retaliate. A photographer for ACB, Bruce Martin, was banned from the stadium for bringing in a banner that called out the team’s corporate owner, AEG, which said that the conglomerate “loves immigrant dollars, but not immigrants.” AEG donated nearly $2 million to Republican candidates in the 2024 election cycle. Three Chicago Fire fans were banned after displaying a banner with the slogan “Fire Contra ICE,” which included a depiction of team legend Cuauhtémoc Blanco’s memeworthy goal celebration where he mimicked a dog urinating on all fours with one leg up, next to the agency’s logo. The fans will not be able to go to MLS events at Soldier field for a year, after they refused to comply with the team’s demand not to display it anymore.
Just a couple of clubs have refused to come down on their most loyal supporters in this manner. The only team to make a proactive statement on the matter thus far is Los Angeles Football Club, Galaxy’s crosstown rival, which issued a statement declaring that the organization “stands shoulder to shoulder with all members of the community” on June 8th. Austin FC’s Los Verdes supporter group toned down but did not eliminate its politically motivated banners after negotiating with the team, going from signs that read “Abolish ICE” to ones that say “Austin is an immigrant city,” as well as distributing informational cards to supporters as part of a “Know Your Rights” campaign.
Despite the Latino community’s deep ties to the sport and vocal fanbase across a number of clubs, Major League Soccer has leaned away from them. A spokesperson for the league told Rolling Stone that MLS does not allow fans to “advocate for or against any political candidate, party, legislative issue, or government action” with signs or symbols at games. This stands in stark contrast with the league’s reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests from the summer of 2020, where players and staff of various teams knelt during the national anthem as a show of support for the movement. “Major League Soccer stands by the ideals of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest that are the hallmarks of the United States and Canada,” the league declared in a statement at the time. Today, they seem to follow a different policy.
