Atlanta group wants safeguards for immigrants, workers and unhoused during World Cup

A coalition called Play Fair ATL, which is vowing to watchdog the city of Atlanta during World Cup games, unveiled its policy platform Thursday near Mercedes-Benz Stadium saying leaders must do more to address concerns about worker pay, safe housing and immigration enforcement during the tournament.

The coalition is made up of civil rights organizations, labor unions and advocacy groups — including the Georgia AFL-CIO; the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights; the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; the Southern Center for Human Rights and the Union of Southern Service Workers.

Mariah Parker, a labor organizer with the Union of Southern Service Workers, serves on the steering committee and said the coalition is as excited as anyone for the games to come to Atlanta next summer.

“I know many of us are engaged in this work because we are avid sports fans. We’re excited about what this can mean for the city,” Parker said.

But the activist, who is a rapper and former commissioner in Athens-Clarke County, also said: “We can create living-wage jobs, we can invest in quality housing, we can protect our community through criminal justice equity and we can create a city that is welcoming to immigrants and ultimately a place where all Atlantans can live a dignified life.”

In August, the 16 host committees across the United States, Canada and Mexico submitted individual human rights action plans, informed by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as part of FIFA’s new protocol for the tournament.

This was after soccer’s governing body, long mired in scandal, faced international condemnation over human rights abuses and migrant worker deaths before the last World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

The city’s chief equity officer, Candace Stanciel, previously told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that preparations for housing, homelessness, and labor protections are “works in progress” founded on “principles and policies that will live beyond the World Cup.”

“Atlanta will continue to be a welcoming city that upholds the rights of all people,” Stanciel said in September.

Mayor Andre Dickens’ press secretary, Michael Smith, said the administration has held several meetings with members of the coalition and remains committed to upholding civil and human rights, creating housing and transit, and providing services for people experiencing homelessness.

He added that Dickens had made these issues a priority long before Atlanta learned it would be a host city, would continue working on them after the final match is played, and considers them “moral imperatives” for the city.

Play Fair ATL officials say they want to make sure the city lives up to those promises.

The group’s policy platform includes demands for more affordable transit, environmental protections, and fair housing.

Among other things, it wants the city’s host committee, and contractors and subcontractors it hires, to make sure workers receive fair compensation, including a minimum wage of at least $26 an hour.

The coalition is also concerned about widespread immigration raids during the games in Atlanta. Similar raids have taken place already in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Daniel Noroña, Americas advocacy director for Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that “attending a soccer match should never result in arbitrary detention or deportation.”

“The threat of excessive policing, including immigration enforcement, at World Cup venues is deeply troubling, and FIFA cannot be silent. FIFA must obtain binding guarantees from U.S. authorities that the tournament will be a safe space for all, regardless of political stance, opinion or immigration status,” Noroña said.

Play Fair ATL’s director Michael Collins said his group would “push for what’s best for the city of Atlanta.”

“We hope that the city officials will do the same. Donald Trump is going to do what Donald Trump is going to do … but we are going to stand on our values, and we’re going to push the city to stand on its values as well.”

Besides putting pressure on the city, the coalition is also pressing Waffle House, a staple of the South headquartered in Norcross, to do more to protect its workers.

It is demanding the company drop its mandatory meal deduction policy for employees and raise wages to $25 per hour for cooks and servers.

About $3 dollars, or 30 cents per hour, is deducted from paychecks per shift, whether an employee wants the meal or not. The coalition wants Waffle House to make it optional for workers to buy meals during their shifts.

“Let’s be honest, we all know, as a multi billion-dollar corporation, they can afford to give us a free meal,” said Katie Giede, who works at the chain as a server, and is a member of the Union of Southern Service Workers.

Waffle House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Giede said she has to work three jobs, including DoorDash and Uber, to pay her rent. She said her living situation is paycheck-to-paycheck, and some of her coworkers are homeless.

“I’m still having to juggle which bill gets paid first,” Giede said. “Even those of us who have a house … we could be homeless just that fast.”

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Play Fair ATL’s platform takes aim at the city’s Downtown Rising plan — a bid to end homelessness in the city’s downtown core by the end of the year. Coalition officials argue the plan, which is attempting to transition people from encampments into rapid housing with wraparound services, could worsen displacement and criminalize unhoused people who decline services.

Partners for HOME, which coordinates the city’s homelessness strategy, said in November that it was halfway toward the goal of housing 400 people downtown by the end of 2025. The plan does not include the city’s entire unhoused population.

Even though the city and Partners for HOME favor Housing First policies, now under threat because of the Trump administration’s funding changes, members of the coalition said they have doubts.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Melodie Rosser, working with an advocacy group for women who have been incarcerated called Women on the Rise, lived in the city during the 1996 Olympic Games. She criticized the city for its heavy-handed treatment of people experiencing homelessness at that time, when advocates said many residents were arrested, jailed or forced out.

She fears a repeat at the World Cup, even though Partners for HOME has said it will do everything it can to ensure homeless people are not criminalized.

On Wednesday, Dickens unveiled a new modular multifamily housing development for the homeless in Berkeley Park. It is the third rapid housing development to open under the Dickens administration, after The Melody, and 729 Bonaventure.

According to Partners for HOME, in 2025 there were 2,894 people experiencing homelessness in Atlanta, with about two-thirds sheltered and about one-third unsheltered. About 730 met HUD’s definition of chronic homelessness, and 80% identified as Black.