FIFA President Gianni Infantino, U.S. President Donald Trump, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney during the FIFA World Cup 2026 official draw at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., December 5, 2025. Photo by Freddie Everett, State Department.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup has begun on American soil, the first time the United States has hosted the tournament in 32 years.
In exchange for the privilege of hosting the Cup, and the enormous revenue it generates, a host nation is generally expected to welcome visitors for the games. Previous World Cup host nations made this the norm by easing their visa policies.
South Africa in 2010 created a dedicated events visa and waived fees for ticketholders. Brazil in 2014 created a visa category tied directly to match tickets and also waived fees. Russia in 2018 abolished visa requirements entirely for Fan ID holders. Most recently, Qatar in 2022 created a universal entry document for all fans and loosened its terms further mid-tournament.
Instead, the United States has adopted the widest nationality-based exclusion policy since the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Nationals from 39 countries currently face U.S. entry restrictions, ranging from partial limitations to outright bans. Among those 39 are four countries whose national teams qualified for the tournament. Haiti and Iran face complete entry bans, while Ivory Coast and Senegal face partial restrictions.
Although players are exempt, fans and families have no way to visit, and local media can’t get visas to cover the games. President Trump has also barred the Iranian national team from sleeping on American soil, requiring the players to spend the night in Tijuana and cross the border only to compete.
One might wonder how these bans are allowed in the first place. The legal vehicle is INA section 212(f), a provision historically invoked with restraint and for targeted purposes.
Before Trump, presidents used it for specific suspensions tied to specific conduct: Haitians intercepted at sea under Reagan, maritime interdiction extended under Bush, senior Haitian government officials (affiliated with the 1994 coup) under Clinton, and persons responsible for grave human rights abuses by the Iranian and Syrian governments under Obama.
Despite leading a country built by immigrants, Trump has used the same authority to ban ordinary people from large portions of the world. This year’s World Cup will reflect that reality in diminished diversity, and the consequences extend beyond mere attendance.
No story captures this more sharply than that of Omar Artan. Named Africa’s best male referee in 2025 and selected by FIFA for the tournament, Artan was set to become the first Somali referee ever to officiate at a World Cup. He cleared the visa process, boarded his flight, and landed in Miami.
But U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied him entry over unspecified “vetting concerns” and FIFA removed him from the tournament. He returned home to a hero’s welcome in Mogadishu, received by thousands at the stadium and by Somalia’s prime minister, who wrote that Artan had “already won the hearts of millions.”
As in the first Trump administration, serious questions remain about whether these bans serve any genuine security purpose. Instead, they appear to function as diplomatic punishment aimed at governments, or people, this administration dislikes.
Preventing fans and players from freely entering the United States, and forcing them to bear the personal cost of policies directed at their governments, produces no discernible security benefit. What it does produce is a steady stream of international criticism.
In its big moment hosting the World Cup, Omar Artan’s story is the image America has projected to the world.
