{"id":162,"date":"2026-06-14T10:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T10:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=162"},"modified":"2026-06-14T10:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T10:11:09","slug":"the-u-s-turning-away-a-somali-referee-was-an-awful-start-to-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. turning away a Somali referee was an awful start to the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

FIFA referee Omar Artan\u00a0flew into Miami on Saturday for the assignment of his career: He was about to become the first Somali to referee in a World Cup. But Artan never made it out of the airport. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reportedly interrogated him for\u00a011 hours then held him in a cell before putting him on a flight back to Istanbul, from where he had caught his connecting flight to the U.S. By Monday, FIFA had\u00a0dropped Artan\u00a0from the tournament.<\/p>\n

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I spent nearly a\u00a0decade\u00a0at the Department of Homeland Security working in counterterrorism and civil rights, and I can say with confidence that Artan being denied entry for so-called vetting concerns and being sent away had nothing to do with national security and everything to do with his being born in Somalia. The government is dressing up its religious and ethnic discrimination in seemingly innocuous bureaucratic clothing.<\/p>\n

The U.S. already operates the world\u2019s most exacting traveler-vetting system \u2014 officials look at fingerprints, facial scans,\u00a0multiple watchlists and conduct checks via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. That system is applied every time someone tries to enter the U.S., and it makes crude nationality bans unnecessary. We don\u2019t have to shut out whole countries to keep our country safe. We have the tools to single out threats and let everyone else through.<\/p>\n

But during this second Trump administration, the government is restricting visits from nationals of\u00a039 countries. Four\u00a0World Cup teams \u2014 Haiti, Iran, Senegal and Ivory Coast \u2014 \u00a0are on that list, and the administration has only given the tournament a narrow carve-out.\u00a0 Players and their families, coaches and staff can enter. But no one else from those nations can: not fans, not journalists, not sponsors and not the officials who run the matches. So Artan, who was named\u00a0Africa\u2019s best\u00a0official in 2025, was turned away at the gate as the players he may have officiated were waved through.<\/p>\n

There are 48 nations that have qualified for the World Cup, and people from 11 of them were having a hard time getting visas to visit the United States even before the World Cup began, a BBC analysis of State Department data found.\u00a0Between October 2024 and September 2025, according to that report, people from those 11 countries who applied for B1 or B2 visas to the U.S. were denied more than 40% of the time. The rate for all countries was 34%.<\/p>\n

In Jordan, where visa refusal rates reached 57%, the head of the country\u2019s football fan association was denied a U.S. visa after he said he brought 42 documents to his visa interview. Iran\u2019s players received visas, but more than a dozen in Iran\u2019s Football Federation, including\u00a0its president, did not. <\/p>\n

Barred from sleeping on American soil, the Iranian team has set up camp across the U.S. border in\u00a0Tijuana, Mexico,\u00a0and will cross the border to play its matches. Pressed to explain the refusals, the Trump administration said it wouldn\u2019t let Iran \u201csneak terrorists\u201d in. No evidence beyond that was offered.<\/p>\n

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Officials claimed \u201cterror associations\u201d had surfaced for Artan, but never showed documentation or allowed him to challenge that finding. This tactic, claiming unnamed, unappealable \u201cthreats\u201d after a decision is made, is a pattern Muslim communities in America know intimately. A recent Opinium poll commissioned by trans-Atlantic thinktank the Concordia Forum found that only 1 in 5 Muslims in the U.S. believe they are always treated equally under the law. That\u2019s not a fringe perception. It\u2019s a majority experience of a system that applies different standards based on faith and origin.<\/p>\n

Real vetting \u2014 internally and externally \u2014 is specific, documented and open to challenge. None of that seems to have happened here. That\u2019s why it\u2019s reasonable to conclude that Artan was turned away not because of anything in his record, but because of where he was born.<\/p>\n

Before the World Cup kicked\u00a0off Thursday, the administration was already using the tournament as an excuse to further its exclusionary authoritarian agenda.\u00a0White House border czar\u00a0Tom Homan promised \u201cmore ICE than you\u2019ve ever seen\u201d in New York as millions of visitors arrive. The White House has\u00a0floated\u00a0the idea of sending the National Guard into Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, and in October, Trump threatened to pull matches from any city his administration decides is unsafe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Expect the pattern to intensify once the cameras are on: more fans turned back at the airport, more officials and reporters pulled into back rooms, more enforcement theater in host cities. America\u00a0promised\u00a0FIFA a tournament free of discrimination, but issuing blanket bans based on nationality sends the opposite message.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still time to stop these policies and appropriately welcome those visiting. For what America decides to do in this moment will echo long after the final whistle. We have the tools to tell who\u2019s a threat from who\u2019s not a threat. We only have to use them.<\/p>\n

Read more As a fan, I\u2019m excited for the World Cup. As a doctor, I\u2019m worried.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Omar Artan, who was named\u00a0Africa\u2019s best\u00a0FIFA official in 2025, was turned away at the Miami airport as the players he may have officiated were waved through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nThe U.S. turning away a Somali referee was an awful start to the World Cup - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=162\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The U.S. turning away a Somali referee was an awful start to the World Cup - 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