California soccer tournament gives former ICE detainees a field to heal
CCIJust Goals brings former detainees, lawyers and advocates together in San Francisco to play soccer and raise money for detained immigrants.
By Sal Moretti · Money Reporter
4 min read
Pedro Ayón first played soccer with Serafín Andrade inside an ICE detention facility in McFarland, California. Years later, the two were back around the game in a different setting: a San Francisco tournament built for people touched by immigration detention.
The event, called CCIJust Goals, held its fourth edition in June at Negoesco Stadium at the University of San Francisco, according to NBC News. It mixes former ICE detainees, relatives of people still held, immigration lawyers, activists and community organizers in coed five-a-side matches.
Ayón, who was born in Mexico and raised in the United States, told NBC News he spent eight months in immigration detention in 2021. Pandemic restrictions meant no visits, he said, so recreation time in the yard became one of the few chances to see others and feel a little distance from confinement.
Andrade, who NBC News reported spent a year and a half at McFarland’s Central Valley Annex, also played there. He said the small-field games helped with stress and gave detained people a way to stop thinking about what was happening to them.
A tournament with a mission
The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, known as CCIJ, organizes the tournament. Edwin Carmona-Cruz, the nonprofit’s executive director, told NBC News the idea is to combine soccer, shared experience and fundraising for people detained by ICE and those released from custody.
This year, 100 amateur players took part on 10 teams, according to NBC News. Carmona-Cruz said many showed up in national team jerseys as the World Cup got underway, turning the day into a kind of community watch party with cleats.
Teams must raise at least $1,000 to register, Carmona-Cruz said. The money supports legal services for people currently detained by ICE, including a Salvadoran man being held at California City Detention Facility.
Speaking to Noticias Telemundo from the facility, the man, who asked not to be named, said detainees get one hour outside each day and spend the remaining 23 hours locked in a cell or dormitory. After teams are organized, he said, they usually get about 40 minutes to play.
He also said some balls are low on air, but the games continue anyway. Though he could not play in San Francisco, NBC News reported he designed the logo for CCIJ’s team, The Strikers, a name tied to protests inside detention centers.
Beyond courtrooms and detention centers
Lee Ann Felder-Heim, an immigration lawyer with Asian Law Caucus, has played in three of the four tournaments, according to NBC News. She said the event offers a rare space away from the formal, heavy conversations that often define immigration work.
Ayón said soccer in detention connected people from different countries who did not necessarily share a language. Andrade, now studying sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, said the game was important to healing after immigration arrest. Ayón now works in Sacramento helping people reintegrate after incarceration and studies at a community college, NBC News reported.
Researchers have also studied the link between safe community spaces and mental health. A May study in the American Journal of Community Psychology by researchers from Rutgers University and Arizona State University, based on 529 Latino immigrants, found that safe and inclusive environments were associated with lower anxiety and stress. Germán Cadenas of Rutgers, a co-author, told NBC News that soccer can be a form of collective care and resilience.
Conditions under scrutiny
NBC News reported that more than 60,000 immigrants were detained in the U.S. at the beginning of April, and that California’s detained immigrant population grew by 162% between 2023 and 2025.
A May report by California’s Department of Justice said six detainee deaths occurred between September 2025 and March 2026, the highest number since the state DOJ began compiling the reports. The report cited declining conditions, including inadequate medical care, treatment delays, overcrowding, poor food and excessive use of force by guards. It also documented inadequate access to recreation and outdoor activity at California City.
Noticias Telemundo sought comment from ICE and CoreCivic, which manages California City, but did not receive a response.
The Salvadoran detainee watched some CCIJust Goals matches on a tablet, according to NBC News, while others in Kern County joined by video. Carmona-Cruz said the tournament uses soccer as a bridge to immigration, and he believes the model could spread to other parts of the country during the World Cup.
This story draws on original reporting from NBC News.