With less than a week to go until the start of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, the topic making headlines isn’t sports. It’s security. For days, the Italian government, the city of Milan, embassies, and consulates have been trying to respond to public outcry following reports about the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Games as the agency sows chaos, violence, and death in the US.
Last week, the US Department of Homeland Security confirmed to The New York Times that ICE would accompany a US delegation to the Games. They would, according to a statement attributed to DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin, be working with a State Department team “to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations” and not to conduct immigration enforcement.
US officials claim such security measures are common for the Games and stressed that Italy would be in charge of security. Still, following the recent shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good at the hands of US immigration agents, Italians were upset over ICE’s presence. Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, went so far as to tell a local radio station that agents were “not welcome” in the city.
Other Italian officials weren’t as unequivocal. Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, claimed he knew nothing about ICE’s presence in Milan but stressed that he saw nothing wrong with it. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a frequent Trump ally, has thus far remained silent.
On Saturday, hundreds gathered in Milan’s Piazza XXV Aprile to protest ICE’s presence at the Games, carrying signs reading “No ICE in Milano” and “ICE Out Now.”
ICE won’t be working with Italian law enforcement, which has promised to have more than 6,000 personnel at the events, but will instead be working to protect the US contingent, which includes Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Put another way, they’re likely to be suit-and-tie ICE operatives, not agents in masks and military gear.
ICE isn’t the only controversial security force in Italy for the Olympics. On January 27, a cargo plane with more than a hundred Qatari public security officers, 20 camouflage SUVs, and three snowmobiles landed at Milan’s Malpensa Airport. Following their arrival, the SUVs made their way to the city center, driving past Piazza Duomo and San Siro, where the opening ceremony will be held on Friday.
Qatar has no athletes competing in the Winter Games. The presence of the country’s elite security team comes at the behest of Piantedosi, who signed a cooperation agreement last September during a trip to Qatar. The security force has been tasked with “monitoring locations, providing rapid response capabilities, and supporting preventive measures against potential security risks,” but the arrangement has proven controversial given that they have often been accused of abuse, specifically against the LGBTQ+ community.
The Italian diplomatic offices of Qatar and the Italian Ministry of the Interior did not respond to requests for comment from WIRED Italia.
This story originally appeared in WIRED Italia. It has been translated from Italian.
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