• Betts and Hernández opt against joining team for event

• Back-to-back World Series winners gift ring to Trump

• Many loyal fans had conflicted feelings over visit

Donald Trump hosted the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House on Thursday for the team’s second trip to the White House in two years.

The team gave the president a custom jersey and a World Series championship ring during a ceremony at the Rose Garden. Four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, star first baseman Freddie Freeman, World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto and manager Dave Roberts were among those in attendance, while several players – most notably star shortstop Mookie Betts and utility man Kike Hernández – opted not to attend.

After ICE raids and protest crackdown, the LA team’s supporters are ambivalent about the World Series winners’ visit

Like many children of Latino immigrants in Los Angeles, Juan grew up a Dodgers fan. He watched their baseball games from home when he was little – even though his parents, who are Guatemalan, were more interested in soccer and basketball – and has been to Dodger Stadium many times as an adult. He sports a Dodgers logo, among other symbols, on an elaborate tattoo on his left forearm.

These days, though, he’s not sure about his allegiance. Juan – whom the Guardian is only identifying by his first name amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown – saw his family ripped apart when his father, who had been in the US for close to 30 years, was plucked off the street last year and deported. From that moment on, a team that many immigrants in LA see as a symbol of integration and belonging became, for him, an organization unwilling to stand up for its large immigrant fanbase.