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Editor’s note: The Pittsburgh World Cup has been canceled along with other events celebrating Pittsburgh’s international community out of fears of ICE raids.
As the first few months of Trump’s second term have proven to be a dark, scary time for immigrants of any status in America, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and the city’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA) are aiming to bring some light and fun to the city’s immigrant communities.
The City and OIRA recently announced the 2025 Pittsburgh World Cup, a seven-week soccer tournament throughout June and July at the Riverview Park Soccer Field featuring teams formed around national and cultural identities. Framing the event as “celebration of culture, community and soccer,” the City hopes to reframe a negative, fear-driven national atmosphere around immigration into a positive one locally, highlighting the enrichment and value these communities bring to the city.
“I think it’s quite clear that we are living in a cultural moment where there’s a lot of overall, general division in America as it relates to many different issues,” says OIRA Manager Nathan Harper. However, Harper says the Pittsburgh World Cup is about unity, support, and the city’s commitment to its residents with an immigration background: “This event really fits into that longstanding commitment and, at the same time, stands out in this cultural moment because of the broader division that’s in our society.”
At a time when immigrants of all backgrounds and legal statuses are facing targeted discrimination — including the revoking (and subsequent reinstatement) of visas for international students at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh — the narratives and challenges faced by immigrants across the country have rarely been more heightened and frightful.
By hosting this celebration in the form of soccer, the city hopes to remind all residents of the value its immigrant communities have brought to Pittsburgh historically and continue to bring today.
“I think it’s more or less that, when we talk about putting together events, what we’re trying to do — particularly from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs — is we’re recognizing that our communities are microcosms of the nation,” Harper said. “We want to localize that and bring new ones to it, and, by doing that, highlight the incredible value and assets that they are to the city and our community. Not only are they a demographic that has slowed the economic decline and population reductions in our city over the years, they fit into a longer history of immigrants in this city and what they’ve brought to our community in so many different ways.”
That said, the OIRA is not ignoring the current environment nationally as they host this event. With nationwide ICE crackdowns and increased levels of harassment and discrimination towards immigrants, the city is making efforts to ensure a large gathering of immigrants — the vast majority of whom are of fully legal status in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania as a whole — is done as safely as possible.
“It’s something that’s really top of mind for us as we’re organizing. We’ve essentially had two options that we had to decide from this dilemma months ago – whether we’re going to cancel these types of events because of the risk of harassment or ICE activities, or we move forward and we don’t hide our immigrant communities, but continue to celebrate it in the face of this cultural moment. And we decided on the latter,” Harper says. He points to an estimate that only 1.2% of the state’s population are out-of-status. “There isn’t a lot of evidence that there are many undocumented immigrants in Pittsburgh in general.”
“We will make sure that our participants in these events are aware of their rights as they relate to the types of warrants that are used, the types of techniques that are used during those activities – that’s just public information that is out there; you can Google it,” Harper added. “We will be requesting local organizations that have legal observers to be present so that there is an extra layer of support should anything like that happen.”
The city has set a deadline of May 21 for team registration, which includes “free agents” who can play on the seven-person teams. Those interested can register collectively or individually.
“As someone who lived overseas for 16 years after growing up here in Pittsburgh, I know what it’s like to be in a country that’s not my own,” says Harper. “And the joy that I experienced playing American football on Thanksgiving in places like Yemen, or ultimate frisbee in places like Egypt — whenever you’re an immigrant in another country and you’re able to find connections to things that you love from your home country, it really makes a difference in terms of your experience.”
This article appears in May 14-20, 2025.
