"Carry Your Papers": What MLB's Spring Training Immigration Crisis Means for Every Pro Team

As pitchers and catchers report for 2026 spring training, MLB's official guidance for protecting foreign-born players from immigration enforcement encounters amounts to five words: "Tell players to carry their papers."

That's it. No centralized protocol. No league-wide compliance framework. No standardized documentation packets. Just a directive that puts the burden on individual clubs — and individual players — to figure it out.

The Current Situation

The scale of the challenge is staggering. In the 2025 season, 93 active MLB players were born in Venezuela alone — the second-largest international talent source in the sport. Add players from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and dozens of other countries, and you're looking at rosters where a third or more of players hold non-U.S. immigration status.

This week, multiple Cubs players missed the start of camp due to visa processing delays. Robert Suarez is arriving late to the Braves for similar reasons. These aren't obscure names — they're roster players whose absence affects competitive readiness.

Front Offices Are Improvising

According to reporting from eyeblack on February 9, 2026, front office staffers across the league are terrified. Some described scenarios of players being stopped at a Walmart near spring training facilities. Others are improvising "know your rights" training sessions with zero centralized guidance from the league office.

The problems are compounding:

• No standardized documentation protocol — Each club is left to determine what documents players should carry and how to compile them
• Language barriers — Many foreign-born players speak limited English, making encounters with law enforcement exponentially more complicated
• Geographic concentration — Spring training in Arizona and Florida puts hundreds of foreign-born players in states with active immigration enforcement
• Travel restrictions — MLB's December 2025 memo warned clubs against sending non-Venezuelan staff to Venezuela, complicating offseason player support

What "Carry Your Papers" Requires in Practice

When a league official says "carry your papers," what does that mean in practice? For a foreign-born player on a P-1 visa, the documentation stack includes:

1. Valid passport — Must be current, not expired or expiring within six months
2. Visa stamp — The physical visa in the passport, which may have different validity dates than the underlying status
3. I-94 Arrival/Departure Record — The electronic record that establishes the player's authorized period of stay
4. I-797 Approval Notice — The USCIS approval of the underlying petition
5. Employment Authorization Document — If applicable, depending on visa category and status

Now multiply that across a 40-man roster with 15+ international players. Factor in that documents expire at different times, that some players have pending status changes, and that dependents may have entirely different documentation requirements.

The question isn't whether players should carry their papers. The question is whether your organization can ensure they have them.

The Compliance Gap

Most MLB front offices manage immigration documentation through a combination of outside counsel, spreadsheets, and institutional memory. When a player's visa is handled by one law firm, their I-94 is in a different system, and their passport copy lives in a filing cabinet in the clubhouse manager's office, "carry your papers" becomes an operational nightmare.

Consider what happens when:

• A player is traded mid-season and their documentation is split across two organizations
• A minor leaguer gets called up and needs their complete immigration file assembled in hours
• A player's visa expires during the offseason and nobody flags it until they can't re-enter the country
• A player needs to travel for a family emergency and can't locate their approval notice

These aren't hypotheticals. They're happening right now, across the league, every week.

What Teams Should Be Doing

The organizations that will navigate this environment successfully are the ones building systems — not relying on ad hoc processes. That means:

• Centralized document management — Every player's immigration documents in one place, accessible to authorized staff instantly
• Automated expiration tracking — Proactive alerts when documents are approaching expiration, not reactive scrambles after they've lapsed
• On-demand documentation packets — The ability to generate a complete, portable immigration file for any player at any time
• Bilingual documentation — Cover letters and instructions in both English and Spanish so players understand what they're carrying and why
• Bulk operations — The ability to generate documentation for an entire roster before spring training, not one player at a time

The Bottom Line

The current environment has made immigration compliance a competitive issue, not just a legal one. Teams that can't ensure their players are documented, informed, and protected are teams that will lose roster spots to visa delays, miss games to travel restrictions, and face organizational risk that no amount of legal counsel can fully mitigate after the fact.

"Carry your papers" is the right advice. But it's not a strategy. It's the bare minimum — and right now, most teams can't even guarantee that.