Esports is in a strange position. It tends to be unaffected by many global and political issues despite its size, especially within western countries and regions due to its lack of influence and importance in society and politics. When the COVID pandemic hit, the esports industry was one of the few groups apart from online meeting platforms and social media that increased in revenue and popularity. Even AI hasn’t been prevalent in Esports since much of the industry’s work necessitates human contribution. 

That being said, it could be argued that esports has not been as politically impacted as it has been as of now. While esports culture tries to be as apolitical as it can in order to maintain a decent environment and avoid controversy, ICE has become too large of a topic to brush off. 

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (more commonly known as ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency meant to conduct criminal investigations, enforce immigration laws, and protect public safety in the US. However, ICE became the largest and most funded federal law enforcement agency due to President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” in 2025 and significantly ramped up its number of deportations, frequently gathering comparisons to a secret police force. This has led to many individuals outside of undocumented citizens or individuals with criminal background history such as citizens and people with visas or green cards to be deported for little to no offenses.

The Import & Visa Issues

An “import” is a term used to describe a player from a different country who is contracted to play in a league hosted within a different region. There are many imports in the North American esports scene, especially within the League Championship Series (LCS), the North American branch of League of Legends Esports. Around 43% of the players are Korean imports, 24% of the players are imports from other countries, and 33% of the professional players are from North America. All the LCS teams compete in and are located at Los Angeles, California. With 40 starting players and very few substitutes in the league, concerns about ICE have been rapidly ramping up. Especially since half of the LCS players, including those from Canada, were found to have visa issues several days before the start of the winter season. Many people took their complaints to Reddit.

These are some snippets of comments that were made when an article was published about the most recent visa issues. 6/8 of the LCS teams had visa issues with at least one team member.

Worlds In America

This year, the World Championships will be held in Allen, Texas and New York City for nearly a full month. In previous years, Americans were happy when Worlds was announced to be in the US while everyone else complained about time-zones. Now, Americans are no longer happy.

So What Happens?

Normally, esports followers hate being directly political. Both the industry and its consumers do what they can to avoid talking about politics when possible. However, this topic, like in many other communities, has transcended beyond just another controversy that requires standard social boundaries and expectations to keep civil. This isn’t the first time people have discussed politics heavily in relation to esports, but it’s arguably the most wide-reaching case. 

In 2020 and 2021, specific measures were taken to accommodate for the COVID pandemic. Worlds 2020 was moved into an “isolation bubble”, a stadium without an audience. Worlds 2021 moved its host cities from China to Iceland and provided another isolated stadium. Worlds 2022 was more directly political and banned Russian teams from participating entirely due to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War. 

Worlds 2026 will be from early October to early November, which is roughly right before or after the 2026 Congressional Midterm Elections. There are no specific dates announced yet outside of the months. Despite the widespread talk about ICE from both fans, players, and staff alike, there has been no addressment about these issues from the LoL esports organizers. The likelihood of Worlds being moved to Canada or Mexico isn’t zero, but that hasn’t been considered as a good alternative option either. Worlds 2022 had its play-ins matches take place in Mexico City, Mexico, but that was because the number of teams was small enough to warrant the visit. Valorant’s 2025 VCT Masters tournament, which was one of the larger international esports tournaments, was held in Toronto. It also suffered from heavy amounts of visa issues.

In-person protests haven’t been held as often this time since the risks are greater. North American fans have been avoiding those due to fear of ICE raids and deportations. What they have been doing is bringing up awareness often under multiple organizations’ social media accounts. This won’t be an easily resolved issue since its impact is on such a large scale, but the goal is to minimize as much conflict and casualties as possible.