The World Cup has brought a little bit of joy to an otherwise joyless place — immigration detention centers.
Amid the rising number of detainee deaths and complaints of inhumane conditions, the international soccer tournament has become a welcome distraction.
At the Otay Mesa Detention Center, dozens of detainees gather around the facility’s four televisions to watch the games.
While Mexico is the most popular team, other detainees have adopted a surprising nation as their second choice.
“A lot of people here supported Cape Verde,” Alcides Gomes, a detainee who was born in the small island country off the coast of West Africa, said in Spanish.
The Blue Sharks, as the team is known, entered the tournament as the 67th-ranked team in the world. Their first game was against Spain, who are the defending UEFA Euro champions and ranked second.
But despite the odds, Cape Verde tied Spain. The team didn’t lose a single game in regulation time.
In their last game against defending World Cup champions Argentina, the Blue Sharks scored two goals and forced the game into overtime before finally losing 3-2.
At the detention center, people from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala would join Gomes to cheer on the Blue Sharks.
“It felt important — they played very well,” Gomes said of his team’s performance in the tournament.
Gomes said he’s proud of how the team fought, and that it inspired him to fight as well.
According to court records, federal immigration agents detained Gomes at a courthouse in Boston — where he lives with his four U.S. citizen children. He had been arrested by local police for a driving violation.
“I have been here 14 months, all alone,” he said of his time at the Otay Mesa facility.
Although seeing the Blue Sharks while in detention brought him a much-needed distraction, Gomes said he would have much rather enjoyed the tournament with his sons in Boston, where he has lived for 37 years.
According to the latest federal data, there are approximately 1,380 detainees in the Otay Mesa Detention Center. More than 80% of them do not have criminal convictions.
