Stephen Lynch

“I just think that it’s set up to be a real mess. I just want to protect our local communities here and the other host communities as well across the country,” said Lynch. “When [Gillette Stadium owner Robert] Kraft is running things, [security] is usually fairly smooth, but this is not one of those situations. I’ve heard from the Foxborough board of selectmen regarding the licensing that they’re very concerned about. There has not been reassurance forthcoming from FIFA or from the host committee that the bill will be paid. So, I understand their concern, and I share that.”

Lynch is a co-chair of the Congressional FIFA World Cup Caucus, a bipartisan group charged with trying to facilitate and smooth out a growing number of wrinkles surrounding the largest global sporting event ever held.

Tuesday marked the start of the 100-day countdown to the first game of the tournament, which will be staged in 11 United States cities, plus five more from Canada and Mexico. Forty-eight countries are scheduled to play a total of 104 matches.

An emerging issue in the security set-up in all the US host cities is the involvement of ICE.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s enforcement of federal immigration laws has generated significant controversy and pushback, and director Todd Lyons told Congress last month that ICE will play a “key part” in World Cup security.

Lynch, however, said ICE isn’t welcome at this event.

“We’re going to have a ton of fans coming in who are foreign nationals and part of the welcoming committee is going to be ICE — masked, armed agents? I don’t think so,” said Lynch. “We can handle this with local law enforcement, No. 1. No. 2, we don’t want the folks who ran the operation in Minneapolis and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good running the operation at Gillette Stadium. That doesn’t work for us.”

Extracting ICE from the security equation will take some doing.

ICE operates under the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the Byzantine grant process that is frustrating Foxborough so much.

Approximately $46 million of the $625 million for World Cup security needs approved in the federal One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act last July are earmarked for Massachusetts.

The funds were supposed to be disbursed by late January, but all of the funds have not been released.

Since mid-February, DHS has been under a partial shutdown, with Congress unable to agree on a number of issues, including reforms to ICE operations.

Politics could be behind the security funding hold-ups, said Lynch, a Democrat.

“When they came before us in Congress to give us briefings, they said, ‘OK, they’ll have this by January,’ and we thought, ‘OK, that gives enough lead time for people to do what they need to do,’ ” said Lynch. “Now, we do have people at TSA, other people who work within DHS, who continue to work, even during shutdowns. If the screeners can work at Logan Airport and every other airport in the country, then the people who write the grants should also be able to work. I don’t get that. They’re essential personnel in this case, at this moment. Maybe what’s happening here is they think they’re using this as leverage to try to get approval of funding. It seems like that might be the play here by [DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem.”

This isn’t Lynch’s first encounter with FIFA, an organization with questionable accountability in his view.

He was in Congress during the 2015 corruption investigation that helped lead to then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s resignation.

“I know they promised reforms, but I see a lot of the same flaws in the way they’re structured,” said Lynch, who said the “master agreement” between FIFA and host communities, sponsors, and media companies directs most revenues to FIFA without clear give-back guidelines to towns facing security responsibilities.

“I just think that there’s an opportunity here for corruption,” said Lynch. “We’ve seen this in the past, so I’m very, very cautious about dealing with this group because once the events are over, you’re chasing people for money, and I don’t see any reliable way to get it. It’s going to be multijurisdictional, you’re dealing with people in many different countries.”

Lynch heard from a staffer present at the Foxborough select board’s last meeting about the pass-the-buck responses from FIFA and the Boston 26 host committee over who’s responsible for security funding.

“It seemed that people were pointing at each other when they said, ‘Who’s responsible?’ They were pointing at each other, and then they both pointed at somebody who wasn’t there. It was the Keystone Cops there,” said Lynch.

Lynch said that while the war with Iran tops the list of congressional concerns, members will turn their attention to releasing the funding.

“[DHS] can’t continue to stonewall. I think they realize that they’re running the clock down to a point where it won’t be possible to use that money in an effective way if we go too long,” said Lynch. “Time is precious here for us to come to an agreement. We realize that a lot of people are huge soccer fans, they’ve purchased their tickets, they’re making preparations, the fans are excited, the people are excited, and the money’s been approved. We have to make this happen.”