Hey, we’re hosting the World Cup, and not far from the immigrant rich Chinatown-International District. And since this is the “World” Cup, tens of thousands of people from around the world will be here. That's a problem! by Vivian McCall While defending Trump’s mass deportation program before Congress today, ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons told Rep. Nellie Pou of New Jersey that the agency would be a “key part of the overall security apparatus” of the FIFA World Cup this year. Hey, we’re hosting the World Cup, and not far from the immigrant rich Chinatown-International District. And since this is the “World” Cup, the world will be here. That’s a problem. Not only for us, but for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Pou’s East Rutherford, New Jersey, and all the other host cities that’ve promised to protect their immigrants from this violent, unpopular agency. I asked Mayor Katie Wilson’s office if A) this is the first they’ve heard of this B) whether the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, or the Trump Administration informed the city of its “security apparatus” C) if they suspected this would happen, given ICE’s vague security role at the Winter Olympics and D) what it can do to protect Seattle if ICE does come here for the World Cup. The office did not return my request for comment.Lyons didn’t pull this plan out of thin air. Last summer, Border Patrol posted and then deleted a statement on Facebook saying that they would be “suited and booted ready to provide security for the first round of games.” And yesterday, radio station KTTH wrote that Seattle will “be protected by a unified, multi-agency security operation” as it prepares to host the matches.“What you have when you have U.S. government agencies thinking about the defense and the security of U.S. national security and citizens is pulling together our top resources and the most experienced folks from the U.S. government who have worked on these major events,” Mignon Houston, the deputy spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, told conservative radio host Jason Rantz. ...read more read less