The possession turned ICE away on the stadium and pledged $1 million to households of immigrants due to all of the individuals protesting Trump’s immigration actions in LA.
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A demonstrator holds up an indication throughout a protest in entrance of the primary entrance of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on June 19, 2025.
(Etienne Laurent / AFP by way of Getty Photos)
The Los Angeles Dodgers have lengthy had a transactional relationship with town’s Chicano and immigrant communities. In 1949, town seized land for Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine from a Mexican group that had turned the greenspace into “an immigrant Shangri-La.” Households would come to the park and say, “Your uncle lived the place the third-base line ends at residence plate.”
Then within the Nineteen Eighties, a younger pitcher from Mexico, Fernando Valenzuela, grew to become a Dodgers icon. When Fernandomania arrived, Angelenos of Mexican descent stuffed the rafters of the stadium, and group administration welcomed the crowds. At this time, to go to a recreation is to see multigenerational Chicano households decked out in Dodgers blue and consuming Dodger Canines. They’re the center and soul of this fan base and that’s the reason strain has been rising on the World Sequence champions on this present local weather of terror dealing with Latino immigrant communities..
Folks within the metropolis have been ready for group proprietor, Mark Walter, to step up and say one thing concerning the ICE riots in Los Angeles. And but, as their followers have been being thrown into vans by badgeless, masked, armed ICE brokers—or at the very least that’s what these thugs mentioned they have been; there’s no approach to verify who they really have been—the Dodgers have tried to remain out of it.
Present Problem
That’s now not the case. On June 20, the Dodgers introduced that they’d give $1 million to households of immigrants “impacted by latest occasions within the area.” The group didn’t precisely denounce ICE, however the message was clear: It understood that it couldn’t work with the Trump administration and anticipate its followers to stay quiet.
The occasions that led to the Dodgers pledging cash to its immigrant followers began a number of hours earlier than a recreation between the Dodgers and the San Diego Padres when a line of black SUVS and white vans tried to enter the stadium parking zone. The individuals within the automobiles have been masked, they usually carried neither badges nor warrants. Images have been flying round social media as individuals puzzled if the Dodgers have been permitting an armed, warrantless immigration checkpoint inside and outdoors the stadium. However Dodgers safety, on orders from up excessive, wouldn’t enable them into the stadium grounds. Because the extra-legal military that’s ICE searched for one more place to arrange, dozens of individuals confirmed up on a tweet’s discover to protest and movie them. The feds scurried off, to battle (and once more lose) lanother battle—this time in public relations.
Locals praised the Dodgers when the group introduced on social media that it had realized who truly buys their costly tickets and despatched Trump’s assault canine on their method.
ICE and DHS, in distinction, have been snippy and defensive since they have been proven the door and initially, and laughably, simply posted tersely, “False. We have been by no means there.” Then they admitted that Customs and Border Patrol have been there as images and movies flooded social media. Emily Phillips of an Echo Park Speedy Response community reported that the Feds mentioned that they wanted the stadium to course of detainees since doing so out within the open at House Depot can be “too harmful.” It ought to frighten in addition to offend everybody that such a cowardly, frightened group will get to be masked and armed and arrest individuals with out warrant.
Let’s be actual. It could be a mistake to suppose that the Dodgers, whose possession and (some) gamers visited the White Home a number of months again and kissed the ring, are born once more. This was completed due to all of the individuals who bravely stood as much as the LAPD, the Nationwide Guard, the Marines, and no matter motley group of businesses have been diverted to California—a state that, like Greenland within the springtime, Trump clearly desires to grab. And but the actions by the Feds right here can be an escalation. They anticipate to have the ability to use a stadium to “course of” these suspected of being undocumented—and even worse, that they’ll pull individuals out of the group at a ballgame and throw them into the backs of white vans. Given the historical past of stadiums getting used throughout the globe as mass holding cells, with every kind of small rooms excellent for “enhanced interrogations,” it will be significantly traumatizing for these related to international locations the place sports activities arenas double as torture chambers. “The truth that these raids proceed is what we Angelenos ought to be very involved about. Dodger Stadium is a spot the place Angeleno households come and have enjoyable,” mentioned Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights member Jorge-Mario Cabrera.
We want as a substitute to guarantee that the calculus for the Dodgers possession isn’t simply ticket gross sales or a rankings drop. They should know they are going to be publicly humiliated in the event that they a lot as bat their eyelids in ICE’s path. The house owners want to face up not just for their income and never even just for their followers, however as a result of they owe it to the ancestors whose properties the group destroyed in Chavez Ravine. The naked minimal reparations ought to be standing with their group of followers and gamers within the face of a manufactured disaster. Dodgers’ possession didn’t need this battle. However it’s come to them, and followers are forcing them to choose the correct aspect.
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Onward,
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Writer, The Nation
Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the sports activities editor at The Nation. He’s the creator of 11 books on the politics of sports activities. He’s additionally the coproducer and author of the brand new documentary Behind the Defend: The Energy and Politics of the NFL.
