Dodger Stadium (an LA28 Olympic venue) made national headlines last month when autonomous community members and grassroots rapid response networks observed hundreds of federal agents using the surrounding parking lots as a processing and staging area for ICE’s continued raids and kidnappings. Mainstream media parroted the Dodgers’ own claim that ICE was denied entry, and the organization has since pledged a measly $1 million towards financial assistance for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region.

The story serves as the latest example in a long legacy of LA stadiums, often built with public funds and dressed in civic pride, instead repeatedly used as instruments of repression against Black, brown, and immigrant communities.

For decades, these venues have been quietly transformed into launchpads for police raids, mass arrests, and immigration operations, as well as forces of displacement.