GENEVA: UN rights chief Volker Turk urged the United States to reconsider its immigration practices for the football World Cup, after fans, a top referee and team officials found themselves barred from the tournament.

A record 48 teams and millions of fans are descending on the United States, Canada and Mexico for the first World Cup co-hosted by three nations and the largest and most logistically complex ever staged.

But the refusal of US immigration authorities to allow Somali referee Omar Artan, one of Africa’s leading match officials, into the country underlined fears that US President Donald Trump’s immigration policy could leave deep scars on the tournament.

“I hope that the issues around racial profiling, around... immigration enforcement are not going to affect this World Cup in the way that they have already,” Turk told reporters.

“I really hope that there’s a massive re-think of how immigration enforcement is impacting human rights and human dignity, and that especially for the World Cup, there is a re-think of the policies that we have unfortunately seen prevailing, especially in the US.

“I also hope that the dehumanisation of the other, the dehumanisation of migrants, the dehumanisation of refugees and asylum seekers is put to an end, because nobody benefits from divisive and polarising narratives.”

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2026