Major League Baseball Is Too Silent on Immigration Raids

Mint

7 hours ago

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Last week, at the height of the immigration protests convulsing Los Angeles, federal agents showed up at Dodger Stadium, seeking access to the parking lot. Up to that point, the Dodgers had refused to comment on the Trump administration's immigration sweeps and their effect on the city's Latino community. The silence stoked complaints that the team had turned its back on some of its most passionate devotees. By some accounts, Latinos comprise over 40% of Dodger fans.
But the morning agents came, the Dodgers finally acted. The team denied them access to the parking lot and a day later announced a $1 million pledge to help immigrant families harmed by the ongoing raids. That's a modest show of support for an organization worth an estimated $7.7 billion, and it hasn't satisfied everyone. But satisfactory or not, it's a clear indication of whose side the Dodgers are taking.
Major League Baseball and its 29 other clubs, on the other hand, aren't following the Dodgers' lead, preferring silence. If this is their way of not drawing the ire of President Donald Trump, it's an awkward strategy. Immigration has been essential to baseball's history and continues to fuel its growth.
In America's early years, baseball was a new sport for a new country. For immigrants, making a mark on an organized team was an indicator that the player — along with his ethnic group — was upwardly mobile and, finally, an assimilated American. Superstar shortstop and national sensation Honus Wanger, a son of German immigrant parents, was a prime example of this during the late 19th and early 20th century. He uplifted the German-American status, and in his community, he was an icon for making it big.
Three-quarters of a century later, Fernando Valenzuela, a Mexican pitcher for the Dodgers, repeated the feat. In 1981, he electrified Los Angeles and his community with a dominant season, including seven complete games and five shutouts, which netted him Rookie of the Year and Cy Young honors (still the only player to win both in the same season).'Fernandomania,' as his early to mid-80s heyday is recalled, was a cultural phenomenon that diversified and drove attendance upward. In 1981, the Dodgers drew an average of 7,500 additional fans when he pitched at home, and an extra 19,000 when he started on the road. Mexican-Americans were an estimated 10% of the team's supporters when he joined the team; now the Dodgers — affectionately known across LA as Los Doyers — are a unifying institution for the city's Latinos.
More fans, inevitably, means more kids playing baseball, both at home and abroad. Though there are a range of factors responsible for the growth of baseball internationally, the increase in Latin American and other international players has certainly contributed to the expansion and development of deep international talent pipelines.
For MLB teams, bringing that talent to US shores is only constrained by their ability to scout. During the 1930s, a period of notoriously tight immigration restrictions and mass deportations, less than 1% of MLB players were foreign-born. Thankfully, in the post-war period, America decided to open its borders. The result? The number of foreign-born players in the league has seen steady growth over the decades.
In 2025, nearly 28% of MLB players are foreign-born, and it's simply impossible to imagine baseball without stars such as Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. Those international stars, in turn, are leading a surge of interest in the game and the business of baseball. MLB is on track for its third straight year of attendance growth, and viewership in the US and Japan is surging in 2025. Of course, other factors are in play too, but does anyone seriously think a less international game would be as well-played, entertaining, and lucrative?
Trump's immigration policies put that success at risk. For example, under the terms of his recently enacted travel ban, the issuance of new visas to Cuban and Venezuelan nationals is severely restricted.
Dozens of players from both countries — Hall of Famers like Tony Pérez and current players like Jose Altuve — have made prominent contributions to MLB for decades. The new policies will make it far more difficult for teams to bring new signees from either country to the US. But even if loopholes are found, the message to players and their families in these baseball hotbeds is hardly welcoming.
So far, MLB has chosen to remain silent on these changes, just as it has clammed up over the deportations that are running through its Latino fanbase. Perhaps the league and its teams believe that quiet diplomacy is the best way to approach the Trump administration on immigration-related matters. But if so, there's little public indication that doing so has achieved anything other than damaging relations between the Dodgers and their fans.
Meanwhile, other sports are acting. In mid-June, the players associations for the Women's National Basketball Association and the National Women's Soccer League issued a joint statement of support for immigrants experiencing hardship due to the raids. Angel City FC of the NWSL took it a step further and distributed 10,000 T-shirts to fans and players emblazoned with 'Immigrant City Football Club' on the front. Proceeds from sales of the shirts go to an organization offering legal assistance to immigrants.
Of course, no team or sport will convince Trump to change his course on immigration. But by showing solidarity with their fanbases, players and teams strengthen the community connections that are critical to growing sports, and the commerce around them. That's a legacy that can outlast any executive order. It's time for Major League Baseball to step up to the plate.
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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of 'Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.'
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