NFL says no ICE agents involved in Super Bowl security

SAN FRANCISCO — One of the non-football subplots around the Super Bowl is the presence of federal law enforcement and what that means in light of federal action in Minneapolis and elsewhere around the country. The biggest concern has been about the potential for immigration enforcement taking place around the Bay Area, while there is also concern about how law enforcement, and particularly Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) will engage with the public.

On Tuesday ahead of the Super Bowl, Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s Chief Security Officer, said there would be no planned ICE enforcement operations. When pressed as to potential enforcement around the other activities this week leading up to the game, she specifically said that ICE would not be at all involved in Super Bowl security.

The Department of Homeland Security has partnered with the NFL for the past two decades in building out a security and public safety plan for the week of the Super Bowl and the game itself. DHS oversees numerous organizations, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection. ICE and CBP have been the two agencies most publicly connected with alleged law enforcement misconduct over the past year.

This past October, after the NFL announced Bad Bunny as the halftime act for Super Bowl 60, DHS secretary Kristi Noem told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson that there would be ICE enforcement and federal immigration officers would be “all over” the Super Bowl.

Heading into Super Bowl week, TMZ reported there would be no plan for ICE to be at the stadium on game day and there hadn’t “been talk of ICE enforcing immigration policy at NFL-sponsored events across the Bay Area in the days leading up to kickoff.”