The first time Pedro Ayón and Serafín Andrade played soccer together was when they were both detained by ICE at a facility in McFarland, California, a few years ago.
Ayón, born in Mexico and raised in the United States, spent eight months in detention in 2021. Since no visits were allowed due to the pandemic, his only option to see people was to go to the yard to play ball with his fellow inmates.
“When we were allowed an hour, half an hour recess, we often went out and it was a way to feel free, to have fun, to be able to share and somehow forget the situation we were in,” he said. “It’s a ball, right? But it does things you wouldn’t think of: being able to heal people just by kicking the ball.”
Amid the confinement and sadness of being away from his family, football allowed Ayón to form great friendships like the one with Andrade, who spent a year and a half in immigration detention in the same center, McFarland’s Central Valley Annex.
The power of gaming to heal the trauma of detention led a group of people to create a soccer tournament in California that brings together worlds that rarely intersect on a field: former ICE detainees, family members of those still incarcerated, immigration lawyers, activists and community organizers. The teams are mixed, so men and women play on the same field, divided into four courts where they compete in five-a-side matches.
The idea was simple: organize an annual tournament to share experiences, play sports and raise funds to help people detained and those released from ICE facilities. So, “Objectives of the CCIJuste » was born and celebrated its fourth edition in June at the Negoesco Stadium of the University of San Francisco.
Around a hundred amateur footballers took part this year, divided into 10 teams and immersed in the spirit of the World Cup which had just started.
“A lot of people showed up wearing jerseys from their country or other nations. They were very excited to have that connection to the World Cup,” said Edwin Carmona-Cruz, executive director of California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ), a nonprofit organization that uses legal services to fight for the release and empowerment of detained immigrants in California.
Carmona-Cruz remembers that during legal consultations with detainees, he repeatedly heard the same thing: “A lot of people inside tell us: ‘This is the moment when I feel free and I can team up with someone from another country who doesn’t speak my language, but we are on the same team and we are fighting for the same thing.’ »
As evidenced by the World Cup, Carmona-Cruz said, soccer speaks a universal language.
To participate in the CCIJust Goals tournament, each team must raise at least $1,000 to register and, according to Carmona-Cruz, the funds are used to support legal services for people currently detained by ICE, such as a Salvadoran currently detained at the California City Detention Center.
Speaking to Noticias Telemundo from the center, the Salvadoran detainee, who asked to remain anonymous, said he and others played soccer during their daily recreation hour in the center’s courtyard.
“We only have one hour of recreation to go out into the courtyard. The other 23 hours, we are locked up, in cells or in the dormitory,” he explained.
The inmate said that after organizing the teams, they had about 40 minutes left to play: “It’s the best 40 minutes of the day,” he said.
Some balls don’t have too much air, he noted. “There are people who like to score goals and, even if the ball is punctured, that’s how we play,” he said.
The Salvadoran immigrant said it was difficult not being able to watch World Cup matches on television. And although he was unable to participate in the Just Goals tournament in San Francisco, he designed the logo for the uniform worn by the CCIJ team, called The Strikers, a direct reference to the protests inside the detention centers.
The Salvadoran immigrant, who has been drawing since he was a child, took a week to draw the team’s logo, which features the colors orange, yellow and navy blue. He hopes to play on the team, he said, when he is released.
“Football united us”
The CCIJust Goals tournament allowed participants – whether formerly detained immigrants, activists or lawyers – to meet and share experiences beyond immigration court courtrooms and detention centers.
One of the people who best embodies this meeting of worlds is Lee Ann Felder-Heiman immigration lawyer with the Asian Law Caucus. She participated in three of the four tournaments held, scoring goals as a midfielder.
“I grew up playing soccer and I love soccer,” said Felder-Heim, 36, who learned to play on Arizona’s fields when she was 6 years old. “When I’m stressed, I find a field, I play with my friends, and that’s the same thing people in detention do when they finally have an hour to go out.”
Accustomed to “very heavy and formal” conversations with clients and colleagues, Felder-Heim views the tournament as an opportunity to have fun and “celebrate the things that unite us, like our love of football.”
Trauma Connection and Healing
What Pedro Ayón remembers most about the matches when he was in immigration detention was not the competition, he says, but the brotherhood between people who didn’t speak the same language: Russians, Japanese, Chinese, Latin Americans, all became brothers by kicking the same ball.
“Football was more than a game. It was more than a code. It was more than a sport. It was the way we could connect,” he said.
Ayón’s experience is backed by science. A study published in May in the American Journal of Community Psychology by researchers from Rutgers University and Arizona State University, based on 529 Latino immigrants, demonstrated that a safe and inclusive environment is linked to reduced anxiety and stress.
German padlocksdirector of global mental health and immigration programs at Rutgers University and co-author of the study, said playing soccer can be a form of “collective care and resilience.”
Andrade, 41, who arrived from Mexico when he was 4, said that when he was in immigration detention, “we used to play five-a-side tournaments because the field was so small, and it helped us deal with stress, so we didn’t think about the bad things happening to us.”
He remembers being detained with people from Armenia, Germany, India, Canada and other countries. Andrade, who is currently studying sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, believes the experience of playing football was fundamental in healing the trauma of immigration arrest.
Ayón works in Sacramento helping people reenter society after incarceration and is also a student at a community college. Like Andrade, both are actively involved in Just Goals.
Ayón still remembers how he felt when he played in his first tournament after being released from immigration control. “I felt free, I felt joyful, I felt blessed, I felt good and I felt part of a community. I felt like a part of me represented my comrades who were still detained, because I know how football united us there and made us forget.”
Monitoring of detention conditions
According to Data from NBC News, as of early April, more than 60,000 immigrants were detained in the United States.
In California, the detained immigrant population increased by 162% between 2023 and 2025.
The State fifth report on immigration detention centers released in May by the California Department of Justice, said six inmate deaths occurred between September 2025 and March 2026 — the most since the state DOJ compiled these reports.
The report said it found “deteriorating conditions” for detainees, including “inadequate medical care, delays in medical treatment, overcrowding, inadequate food, excessive use of force by detention center guards.”
In the case of California City – the center where the Salvadoran immigrant is detained – the report documented insufficient access to recreational and outdoor activities.
Telemundo Noticias requested comment from ICE and Core Civic, the company that runs California City, but did not receive a response.
The Salvadoran immigrant was able to watch some of the tournament’s Just Goals matches via a tablet. Other Kern County inmates did the same, cheering via video as the tournament was played in San Francisco.
When asked how he felt about participating remotely as a spectator, the Salvadoran immigrant said it felt good to be part of something.
“It’s another connection,” he said.
For Carmona-Cruz, that connection is at the heart of the tournament, and this year’s World Cup gives it special resonance. “We are using the tournament as a bridge between something like football and a subject as complex as immigration,” he said. “We know that with the World Cup this can be replicated and implemented in other parts of the country. »
An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.