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Raids and fear cast a shadow over start of Club World Cup
The Guardian Weekly
|June 20, 2025
When Donald Trump came in the laws just changed and it's hard for immigrants now ... you've got a lot of people being deported, people who have been in the United States for two decades.
It's not nice, it's not right when someone who hasn't committed a crime has to go back somewhere.
"I just don't respect somebody like [Trump] that deports so many people and hurts so many families ... this country was built on immigrants. Nobody's from here."
It seems unlikely this is the kind of hard political messaging Gianni Infantino was hoping to associate himself with when Fifa booked the New York rapper French Montana as its headline act at last Saturday's Club World Cup opening ceremony, a global spectacular that took place against a background of unrest over Trump's immigration and repatriation policies.
French Montana moved to New York from Morocco aged 13 and has been outspoken in his support for the rights of undocumented US immigrants. His comments in interviews in 2019 and 2018, and his presence at the centre of Fifa's publicity for the launch night of its $1bn show, provided a deeply uncomfortable reminder of the perils of fawning over divisive political leaders. Infantino has spent the past year energetically cosying up to the US president.
This story is from the June 20, 2025 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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