While U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border in order to stop immigration into the United States, soccer players from the U.S. are in fact going in the opposite direction as they seek better careers in better programs with better pay.
The Guardian‘s new documentary released Feb. 27, “America’s Soccer Migrants,” explores this migration and follows several U.S.-Mexican players who are currently playing for Mexican clubs.
“My grandparents went to the U.S. for a better life. I chose to be a soccer player and Mexico happened to be the place to achieve that,” Carlos Flores, a player at Santos Laguna club in Torreon, said in the documentary.
“I would tell people to come visit Mexico anytime you want and see for yourself and not listen to this fake news,” Omar Gonzalez, player for the C.F. Pachuca, said explaining that he was happy to move to the country in order to reconnect with it and give his family a better life.
He moved across the border in 2016 after playing at a Los Angeles soccer club that didn't meet his needs. He was offered a better deal by C.F. and moved south with his two daughters and wife.
Jonathan Navarro had a rockier road to his current spot on Santos Laguna, as he was forced to sit out two years until he turned 18 years old.
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All the players featured in the documentary moved to Mexico because it offered them a more-established soccer culture and infrastructure that could better their careers and futures.
The documentary highlights the issue of the propaganda used by the Trump administration in order to advance a racist right-wing agenda that paints Mexico and other countries in Latin America as nations that lack opportunity and a decent livelihood.
The players, Mexican soccer league officials and others featured in the documentary all slammed Trump’s wall and rhetoric against Mexico, saying that a barrier has already been built.
During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly said that he would make the Mexican government pay for the building of the wall. After his inauguration, the issue of the wall strained ties between the two countries after he again said that Mexico must pay for it.