When the Los Angeles Dodgers made their way to the White House on Thursday, many fans’ pride for the back-to-back Major League Baseball champions morphed into feelings of confusion and betrayal.
As All-Stars Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto stood behind President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., it was impossible to deny that the president’s anti-immigration policies and their impact on Los Angeles loomed in the background.
When the Trump administration launched its long-promised immigration crackdown last summer, the Los Angeles area and its bedrock of Latino residents appeared to be at the top of its list of targets. A surge of deportation sweeps from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with Customs and Border Protection, threw Southern California into chaos before inciting volatile protests that were met with the deployment of National Guard troops and then Marines.
While other pillars of the community spoke out in defense of their immigrant neighbors, the Dodgers’ silence seemed deafening to many Angelenos, particularly the team’s passionate Latino fanbase.
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Then, on June 19, 2025, the situation arrived at the team’s home turf when federal agents appeared to be staging operations on stadium grounds.
Protesters and fans immediately flocked to Chavez Ravine, demanding answers, waving flags and chanting calls to get “ICE out of LA.”
Hours passed before the Dodgers issued a staid statement: That morning, ICE had arrived asking for permission to access the parking lot but was denied entry. The evening’s game would go on as planned.
In the fallout, new details about the organization’s owners and business ties came to light, leaving fans to wonder if the explanation was more like an excuse. The team’s controlling investor, Mark Walter, through his investment firm Guggenheim Partners, owned a significant stake in GEO Group, a private prison company that operates ICE detention centers.
While damage control would appear to be urgent, it took five days and escalating pressure from the community for the organization’s response: a $1 million pledge to support nonprofits helping immigrant families and a promise from Guggenheim to divest from GEO Group.
Faith-based community organizers PICO California helped spearhead those efforts and asked the Dodgers to “respectfully reconsider” plans to visit the Trump White House.
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“We’re not asking the Dodgers to make a political statement, but we are recognizing the pain that’s in the community,” PICO California chief of staff Jared Rivera told JS, calling the team “the heart and soul of Los Angeles.”
“It’s a huge immigrant base who have supported the Dodgers for generations and we want to make sure that there’s a recognition of what our city has gone through over the last year,” he added, noting how the team has an opportunity to demonstrate “courage and leadership” as they stand with their community.
Meanwhile, the team has tried to downplay any political implications the visit may have.
“As was the case one year ago, the Dodgers’ upcoming visits to the White House and Capitol Hill follow the longtime tradition of visits by other World Series champions,” the organization said in a statement. “We appreciate these tributes in recognition of our back-to-back championships.”
Manager Dave Roberts, who has coached the clubhouse to three World Series championship in the last six seasons, took a similar approach, telling reporters, “Honestly, like I’ve always said ― my company line, my personal line ― is I hope that we get this invitation every year, because that’s the goal, to win a championship, to get this invitation to the White House.”
“I’m not a politician, and I’m doing something that teams have done for decades. And so that’s where I stand, really. I’m a baseball coach. That’s what I do,” he went on.
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While several players have confirmed they will not be present, they also appeared to tread lightly.
Star shortstop Mookie Betts told The California Post he wasn’t trying to get into the fray but simply preferred to stay home and be with his family.
“I’m not trying to make this a whole big deal,” Betts said. “We just had a baby. You don’t get many days off … and just want to hang out with the fam. That’s really kind of it. But people are gonna make it a whole bunch of other stuff.”
Though Kiké Hernandez, a 10-season team veteran known for his charisma and clutch playoff performances, was one of the most outspoken Dodgers during last summer’s raids, saying via social media that he was “saddened and infuriated” for his adopted city, he also avoided politics while confirming earlier this month that he would not be attending.
“It’s going to be hard to be in two cities at the same time,” said Hernández, who is recovering from an injury and readying himself to get back on the roster playing with the Dodgers’ minor league affiliate, the Oklahoma City Comets.
“If I was active, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyways,” added Hernández, who also skipped the team’s trip to the Trump White House last April.
Rivera told JS he hopes the team uses its time in the White House to convey the pain felt throughout Los Angeles, urging the administration to collaborate with the city to end the “terror” that’s pulsed through LA for over a year now.
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“Those words would mean so much to our community and to us as fans if we knew that they were taking us into that room and were speaking on behalf of a fanbase that loves the Dodgers and needs them now to be leaders with us,” he said.
In Washington on Thursday, the Dodgers seemed to try to find a diplomatic balance to their visit with Trump, as manager Roberts and shortstop Miguel Rojas met with a group of legislators that included California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats and staunch critics of the president.
When the team gathered with Trump later in the day, the president celebrated Rojas and outfield slugger Andy Pages’ accomplishments on the field.
He did not acknowledge the fact that the athletes, who hail from Venezuela and Cuba, respectively, were part of the immigrant communities he’s spent so much of his second term vilifying.
During his remarks, Trump did not insult LA as a town full of “troublemakers and insurrectionists” as he had last summer, but said he hoped to welcome the city’s chosen sons back to the White House as champions once again next year.