By Rory Carroll and Daniel Trotta
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The Los Angeles Dodgers said they had denied U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents access to the parking lot at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, in the team’s first sign of opposition to immigration raids that have rattled California’s largest city.
The Dodgers, whose baseball fan base includes a significant Latino contingent, have come under criticism from fans and local media commentators in recent days for not speaking out publicly against raids by immigration agents across Los Angeles.
The raids sparked street protests, which in turn prompted President Donald Trump to send in the National Guard and U.S. Marines to protect federal personnel and property, fueling more protests and tension.
“This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots,” the team said in a post on X. “They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight’s game will be played as scheduled.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said CBP vehicles used the parking lot briefly.
“This had nothing to do with the Dodgers. CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
MSNBC showed video of a small number of protesters objecting to the presence of at least four uniformed agents and three vehicles and asking them to remove their facemasks. Los Angeles Times video showed protesters chanting, “Where are the Dodgers?”
The Dodgers, coming off a World Series championship in 2024, are a cultural touchstone in Los Angeles. Their Latino fan base has been a large part of the team’s identity at least since the “Fernandomania” craze surrounding Mexican-born pitcher Fernando Valenzuela in the early 1980s.
After nearly two weeks of silence over the raids, the Dodgers were due on Thursday to announce plans to assist immigrant communities, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a team spokesman.
The Dodgers did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
“It’s kind of upsetting that they haven’t spoken up,” Kimberly, a fan who did not want to give her full name, told Reuters at Dodger Stadium before Wednesday night’s game.
She praised Enrique “Kike” Hernandez, the popular utility player and Puerto Rican native, who recently posted that he could not stand to see the Los Angeles community being “violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart.”
Hernandez received a huge ovation from the crowd when he came to bat on Wednesday.
Lifelong Dodgers fan Dmitri Turner said that while he would like to see the team use its platform to address the “bad things going on” with ICE detentions, he understood that the organization might want to keep its focus on the field.
“Maybe they’d rather leave that to the politicians and give the fans what they want, which is good baseball,” he said in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium.
While the immigration raids may appeal to Trump’s base of supporters over concerns about border security, many community leaders in heavily Democratic Los Angeles have publicly opposed the operations. Mayor Karen Bass has denounced them as provoking more tension and as harmful to the local economy.
Singer Nezza sang the U.S. national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium on Saturday, injecting a form of protest into the patriotic tradition before the baseball game.
The professional soccer clubs LAFC and Angel City FC have issued statements of support for immigrants but otherwise the city’s sports franchises have refrained from commenting.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; editing by Colleen Jenkins and Diane Craft)
