How do MLB workers protect Latin players from Trump's ICE raids? By themselves.

This week, pitchers and catchers report to their Major League Baseball teams in preparation for the 2026 season. Some of the most talented among them will also gear up for the international World Baseball Classic tournament, repping their nation with pride. But, for me, the inherent optimism of February baseball is inseparable from our ongoing century of American humiliation. Soon, an influx of workers from other countries will pour into Arizona, Florida, and Texas. They will resemble the exact people the United States is violently purging from public life. 

Every MLB front office assigns a collective of people to help foreign players become champions on the field by calmly settling into American life. For those closest to the young Black and brown-skinned immigrants populating the league’s lowest rungs⁷, the potential for catastrophe is obvious.

“This shit is terrifying me right now,” said one front office staffer who works directly with foreign born players at the team’s training complex in Arizona. (“This shit,” meaning, helping Dominican ESL teens dodge a state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing, wasn’t part of the job description.) “Like, they need to get groceries. I worry about them being picked up at Walmart.”

Made worse is the feeling of trying to keep these players safe from more than crime or personal scandal, but the violent conduct of Donald Trump’s government. All without what they believe to be sufficient help from the league.

“The guidance we got from MLB is minimal,” said the staffer. “The league has advised us to tell the players to carry their papers with them at all times. That's it.” As masked patrolmen detain U.S. citizens for days at a time, being told they should flash their passport to a slave catcher is but a small comfort.

Three team sources¹, each of whom have extensive experience working with young talent from across the Latin American diaspora, spoke to eyeblack about how they’re trying to ensure players and their families avoid tripping on ICE on their way to the ballpark. For some workers, what might be a difficult task on its own feels outright impossible when the league hasn’t provided clear instruction on how its players and their support staff should navigate an increasingly cruel, draconian, and racist immigration enforcement.

(MLB did not respond to multiple requests for questions about what procedures the league, if any, the league was taking to protect immigrant players and staff or equip staffers to advise foreign-born athletes.)

“You don't want to strike fear into them, so they're not like they're afraid to move every day,” said another worker for a National League club. “[But] given the current political climate, where speaking Spanish in the wrong place could get a call from someone. And then, ICE is there.”

The AL staffer told eyeblack that, right now, “Most [players] are blissfully unaware of the current ICE situation.” 

“I don’t want to scare them, but I also think they need to know that people like them are being targeted,” said the staffer. “I’m fairly certain that ICE is not going to show up at a baseball complex looking for players to arrest. That would be dumb⁵ of them, plus Manfred kisses Trump's ass³, and Trump is a sports fan. But these guys also exist in the broader society around them and spend time away from the field at other places.”

Scouting and coaching staff, many of them older than players and, thus, more cognizant of American concentration camps, are less ignorant and more wary. 

“Staff have shared that they're adapting by not going out alone, making sure to check in with their kids,” said the AL staffer. “[They’re] not hanging out with former players [and] other people who might not have papers.”

One AL executive told eyeblack that while MLB hasn’t helped teams navigating domestic immigration crackdowns, the league did offer more useful information on travel in and out of the U.S. A December 2 league memo obtained by eyeblack addressed the looming tensions between the United States and Venezuela. “While the Commissioner’s Office does not prohibit scouting or operations in Venezuela, we strongly urge Clubs against travel to the country by non-Venezuelans,” said MLB in its memo. “The situation is currently vulnerable to rapid change.” 

Good advanced scouting from the league office: On Jan 3, one month after the memo, the U.S. military launched a strike it called “Operation Absolute Resolve” and captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

Avoiding the Trump administration’s harsher punishments by following stricter regulation has already, according to an NL staffer, changed how teams train their talent.

“The rules on visa entrance will affect their development,” said the NL staffer. And not just players, but early career coaches, too. “We were gonna fly one of our Cuban coaches after January camp and then finish in our team’s spring training [in March]. But we couldn’t because there’s a one time entry if you have a Cuban passport, which sucks for him.”

As for the day to day, the best teams can do is urge players not to make dangerous decisions. But it’s the quotidian responsibilities of daily life, from an extra gym session, to taking a girl out for dinner, that pose real risk when their existence is criminalized.

“Some of these issues are actually more likely to affect the minor leaguer that's living in small town USA,” said the NL staffer. “[More] than someone that's always traveling on a private jet and staying at the Ritz Carlton.” The AL staffer contrasted San Francisco Giants star Jung-hoo Lee’s detainment at Los Angeles International Airport over missing paperwork to what the typical and otherwise anonymous minor leaguer can expect.

“Lee is a major leaguer with [MLB super agent Scott] Boras as his agent. What kind of protection is a 17-year-old Venezuelan who is in the states playing rookie ball going to get?” asked the AL staffer. “I'm fairly certain that ICE is not going to show up at a baseball complex looking for players to arrest. That would be dumb of them, plus [MLB commissioner Rob] Manfred kisses Trump's ass and Trump is a sports fan. But these guys also exist in the broader society around them, and spend time away from the field at other places.”

For now, league sources say they’re trying to get creative with how they calmly communicate to players and staff. Some teams have created “know your rights” trainings so players can better deal with the evolving circumstances. But workers remain eager for the league to standardize a muscular protocol that addresses the real risks. “It's one thing for the team to be providing the information to these players,” said the AL worker. “But it would mean a lot for MLB or the union to be sharing the same things we are.”

In a statement to eyeblack, the MLB Players Association — the union representing major and minor league players — said it was “available to all Players and agents around the clock to provide information and support.”⁴

(The union’s response stopped short of answering questions requesting specifics about what their resources entail.)

Staffers say that without formal, unified guidance from MLB, clubs are disconnected from each other and forced to improvise to ensure players make it to the big leagues.

“Having a universal programming for players in terms of, like, how to expect, how to deal with stuff, because I think it's probably not a good thing that every team feels like they have to go about this on their own.”

Readers of eyeblack are likely familiar with Liam Conejo Ramos. If not the name, then the floppy blue hat the five-year-old son of asylum seekers wore while immigration officers reportedly used him to “bait” his family. The most anomalous part of Ramos’ story is his freedom. A judge ordered the boy’s removal from a Dilley, TX detention center, and the family has since been reunited in Minneapolis. ⁶ But when the immigration raids transform work commutes and hospital visits into Russian roulette, thousands aren’t as lucky as Liam.

Understand that MLB is an entertainment product and a tournament, but it is also a workplace. Expecting the thousands who herald baseball’s global appeal, especially the most anonymous of young Latin talent, to be spared from a coast to coast racial profiling dragnet without incident requires something greater than optimism or even confidence in those staffers trying to keep them safe. It requires supernatural faith, both in the league these workers insist is largely silent, and a government handicapping work that was always valuable, but has since become vital. Faith that neither league nor country deserve.