In LA, there IS crying in baseball
The very day after the joyful Dodger downtown parade, ICE agents showed up at Dodger Stadium’s parking lot 13.
How ‘bout those Dodgers?
It’s been a few days since the LA team clinched their second World’s Series win in a row and we’re still talking about that here out west (well, that and Tuesday’s elections, which was also a pretty big deal…)
On Monday thousands of fans turned out in downtown LA for the Dodgers victory parade. A large percentage of those fans are Latinx—around 40% of the fan base by many estimates. That fan base was reflected in the thousands who showed up for the victory who mugged for TV cameras and flashed victory sign and large grins.
The very day after the joyful parade in downtown, Dodger Ravine saw an estimated 100 masked and armed ICE and Border Patrol officers show up at Dodger Stadium’s parking lot 13, just outside stadium property at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center where the LA Fire Department trains.
This is not new—ICE has mustered on Dodger turf before.
The question of the Dodgers and the relationship with ICE both have to do with LA’s large Latino communities and a somewhat rocky romance with the team.
The relationship started in 1957 when the team moved out from Brooklyn and many families from three neighborhoods were forcibly evicted.
The relationship started in 1957 when the team moved out from Brooklyn. Reams have been written about the evictions at Chavez Ravine where many families from three neighborhoods were forcibly removed. The city had claimed the land by public domain with the intent of building Elysian public housing but that was thwarted. Take it away LAist : “In June of 1958, voters approved (by a slim, 3% margin) a referendum to trade 352 acres of land at Chavez Ravine to the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Walter O’Malley.” Read LAist’s comprehensive story here.
The publication LA Taco has been on the case recently observing the dynamic between la raza y los Doyers recently. In the July 2025 piece “The Dodgers Keep on Breaking Our Brown, Expendable Hearts,” writers Gabriel Buelna and Enrique M. Buelna lament Latinos being #1 Dodger fans but not feeling loved back.
“Mexicans and Latinos make up forty percent of the Dodgers fan base. We buy the jerseys, the beer, the overpriced nachos—yet we’re still treated like background noise,” a lead-in to the story observes.
Maybe less like background noise and more like someone to menace, if you’re an ICE agent. The very day after the joyful parade in downtown LA, approximately 100 ICE and Border Patrol personnel again showed up at Dodger Stadium’s parking lot 13, just outside stadium property at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center where the LA Fire Department trains.
They arrived in unmarked vehicles with tactical gear and zip ties, according to reports from several sources, including the Los Angeles Times.
Approximately 100 ICE and Border Patrol personnel again showed up at Dodger Stadium’s parking lot 13.
La migra pulled a similar Dodger Stadium stunt in June—except then it wasn’t ICE then, but, rather, their close relative in the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection or CBP.
In June of this year after another ICE and stadium appearance, the Dodgers did come up with a dazzling $1 million dollar fund to distribute to 1,000 families impacted by immigration raids
It doesn’t exactly mitigate all the impacts of immigration raids, including kids staying home from school, parents risking their freedom by going to work and the phenomenon of community grocery shopping groups quickly brought together to provide food to families reluctant to go out to the store.
This chill hanging over Latinx communities has affected those who are citizens or otherwise have legal status. Administration immigration policy and rhetoric have injected US culture with suspicion and fear.
It might be noted that $1 million split into a one-time $1,000 per household is a pittance given the need and an especially insulting amount when you think it might have been rolled out to take the stink off at what looks like Dodger collaboration with ICE.
The Dodger PR machine does indeed seem to have odd notions about their message-crafting—they get bad reviews in the media for having ICE traipsing around Dodger Stadium grounds so they spring with a donation to support the immigrant community—a lavish $1,000 in cash to each recipient household.
When ICE wants to make a show of picking people up, they frequently go Home Depot where day laborers go to wait for work offers.
Tuesday’s Dodger Stadium confrontation was by all reports a mix of both ICE and CBP (neither known for their baseball-playing skills.)
Demonstrators galvanized by a string of recent ICE raids in LA, including one at the busy Home Depot on Sunset Blvd, are poised to show up at the stadium to respond to and document any more ICE appearances there.
Activists have also been showing up at Home Depots. When ICE wants to make a show of picking people up, they frequently go Home Depot where day laborers go to wait for work offers—contractors show up looking for supplies and equipment—and a few extra pairs of hands and shoulders to get projects completed.
In August, Carlos Roberto Montoya, a 52-year-old day laborer from Guatemala was waiting for work at a Home Depot in Monrovia, a city some 20 miles from downtown LA, when ICE showed up. Montoya bolted across the freeway to escape ICE agents and was fatally struck by a car.
$1,000 from the Dodgers or anybody else won’t help Montoya out now. The National Day Laborers Network (NDLON) has repeatedly called on Home Depot to speak up against the ICE raids at their stores. NDLON commemorated Montoya at a Dia de Los Muertos event and supporters put out flowers near the freeway where Montoya was struck.
On October 2 there was a second raid at the same Home Depot that picked up five day laborers.
Home Depot benefits from labor being available to contractors who choose a store that also provides them with a labor supply. Despite community pressure—and despite an ICE-related tragedy at a Monrovia Home Depot store and pressure from labor and community organizations, corporate leadership has not yet taken steps to discourage ICE visits.
The Dodgers business model benefits from the Latino fan base that fills the stadium and buys the merchandise.
But back to the Dodgers y la migra. In the same way Home Depot’s business model benefits from day laborers, the Dodgers business model benefits from the Latino fan base that fills the stadium and buys the merch, ballpark brews and burgers.
This makes Dodgers majority-owner Mark Walter a lot wealthier—your Dodger dollars at work. Walter is invested in private companies in the most literal way; he’s playing ball (so to speak) with ICE and other immigration outfits.
It no doubt has occurred to Walter that it’s a bad look to have armed masked armed men at his team’s baseball stadium and certainly many in the LA area have given him the hint. This week NDLON and other labor and community groups have publicly called on the Dodgers to stand with day laborers, car wash workers and other immigrants that are literally in ICE’s cross hairs and decline a congratulatory visit to the Trump White House.
It would be a surprise, a big win and cause some good trouble if the team or any of the players declined to show up at the WH.
Doubt it’s going to happen.
Mark Walter is the principal owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers — and the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, which manages over $375 billion in assets. Their holdings include a 0.38% stake in GEO Group, a private prison corporation that runs ICE detention centers.
Mark Walter, owner of the Dodgers, is also CEO of Guggenheim Partners whose share of investments amounts to $12 million invested in immigrant incarceration.
Based on the present estimation of GEO’s current $3.39 billion worth, Guggenheim’s share of investment in immigrant incarceration amounts amount to $12 million invested in immigrant incarceration.
Walter also heads TWG Global, which invests in all kinds of things—right now very keen on AI. TWG Global recently partnered with Palantir Technologies, which was co-founded by the ex-Trump major donor who also played a role in the White House transition team, Peter Thiel, who also founder of PayPal.
(Thiel is dishing out advice rather than campaign donations these days. (“They couldn’t get the most basic pieces of the government to work,” he groused to the Atlantic. ) The company paid $30 million to build ImmigrationOS, a surveillance platform that uses facial recognition and predictive algorithms to track people.
So that’s a sweet relationship between the Dodger’s Big Boss and the profitable immigrant-capture industry. With all that dough he probably doesn’t really even need the Latinx community’s beer and merch money to make team ends meet, but the Dodgers will accept it.
Go Dodgers!
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Copyright 2025 by Bobbi Murray. The Dodgers log used under the “fair use” proviso of the copyright law. All other photos are in the public domain.