German soccer club Werder Bremen has canceled its planned trip to the United States following recent fatal shootings involving federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In a statement provided to Reuters on Friday, Feb. 20, a club spokesperson confirmed the decision, citing a combination of sporting, economic, and political factors.
“It is correct that we cancelled a planned trip to Minnesota in the United States. There were sporting, economic and political reasons for this,” the spokesperson said.
Werder Bremen had been scheduled to play matches in Minnesota and Detroit in May. Those fixtures will no longer take place.
“Playing in a city where there is unrest and people have been shot does not fit with our values,” the statement continued. “Furthermore, it was unclear to us which players would be able to enter the USA at all due to the stricter entry requirements.”
The decision follows two high-profile incidents involving federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, was killed on Jan. 7, 2026, during an encounter with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. The shooting occurred days after ICE launched large-scale immigration raids in the city. Good, a mother of three, had recently moved to Minneapolis and was reportedly returning home after taking her 6-year-old child to school.
Approximately two weeks later, on Jan. 24, Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse, was shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol officers. The Department of Homeland Security stated that Pretti was “armed” and “violently resisted.” However, witness-recorded footage circulated online appeared to show Pretti holding a phone rather than a weapon.
One witness described the events leading up to the shooting, alleging that a federal agent pushed a woman to the ground, prompting Pretti to intervene.
“[Pretti] put his hands above his head and the agent sprayed him again and pushed him,” the witness said. “Then [Pretti] tried to help up the woman the ICE agent had shoved to the ground. The ICE agents just kept spraying.”
The witness added, “It didn’t look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn’t see him with a gun.”
President Donald Trump addressed both incidents in multiple public appearances. In a Jan. 27 interview with Fox News host Will Cain, Trump described the shootings as “terrible,” adding that Good’s death made him feel “even worse.”
Earlier, during a Jan. 20 White House briefing alongside Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Trump commented that ICE is “gonna make mistakes sometimes.”
In a separate Fox News interview that same day, Trump said immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis would be “de-escalated,” while emphasizing that the shift did not represent a full pullback.
“I don’t think it’s a pullback,” Trump said. “It’s a little bit of a change. We’re going to de-escalate a little bit.”
