MILAN — A routine deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Italy to assist with security around next month’s Winter Olympics has raised the ire of locals, including the mayor of Milan, a key host city.
“ICE’s image is terrible,” Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said in an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday.
The agents in Italy for the Milan-Cortina Winter Games are not set to conduct immigration enforcement operations, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. They are part of Homeland Security Investigations, meant to help Italian security and the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service “vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations,” she said.
But President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown — including a wide-scale federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis that has drawn sharp backlash, especially in recent weeks after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens — has drawn outrage among critics in Italy and around the globe. The presence of ICE under any circumstances, however routine, no longer passes without notice.
On Saturday, Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, said he was unaware of any impending arrival of ICE agents, though he said ICE “will never operate in Italy.” On Tuesday, however, and after a conversation with U.S. Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta, Piantedosi said if ICE agents were present, they would “solely be responsible for risk assessment and information exchange with the Italian police, they won’t be operational.”
Sala said ICE posed a political “problem.”
“I’m sure that the Milanese are unhappy with having this sort of militia” here, “which kills people in the U.S., entering houses without permission,” he said, referring to recent events in Minneapolis. Of the Italian government, he asked: “Is it possible that you could say ‘no’ once to Mr. Trump? Once! Quite simply.”
The Winter Olympics are a sprawling affair that typically involves a variety of law enforcement agencies, sent in from countries around the world. The Milan-Cortina Games are a logistical puzzle, as competitions are being staged primarily at three distinct clusters — one in Milan, one in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the northeast part of the country, and a third in the mountains around Bormio and Livigno in northern Italy.
“All security operations on Italian territory remain under the exclusive responsibility and direction of the Italian authorities,” the organizing committee for the Milan-Cortina Games said in a statement Wednesday. The committee helps facilitate coordination and “needs identified by the competent authorities.”
The International Olympic Committee, the international governing body for the Olympics, referred questions about ICE to the U.S. committee, which said in a statement Wednesday that it does not work directly with ICE “in the planning or execution of the Games.”
The Diplomatic Security Service typically provides protection for U.S. diplomats and embassies, and immigration detentions and deportations fall under the jurisdiction of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations unit. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to attend the Olympics Opening Ceremonies next week.
Since its founding, HSI has routinely provided security at major international events, including the Super Bowl, Summer and Winter Olympics and United Nations General Assembly. The ICE arm maintains a presence in more than 50 countries, including Italy, the agency says.
“There’s usually a huge command center in any of these international events, and there’ll be agencies from all over United States, but certainly all over the world as well, working together to try to make sure it’s a secure event,” said former ICE director Sarah Saldaña, who served under President Barack Obama.
The agents will work from an office in the U.S. Consulate in Milan, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Tuesday following a meeting between Piantedosi and Fertitta.
The backlash to ICE’s role around the Olympics comes as the agency faced harsh criticism for its conduct in heavily Democratic cities across the United States. Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, during an altercation in Minneapolis on Saturday. He was the third person in recent weeks to be shot and the second to be killed by federal agents in the city. Since July, DHS officers have fired shots 16 times during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minnesota, The Washington Post reported.
Federal agents have also targeted journalists, including members of the Italian media. ICE agents threatened to smash a car window and drag journalists with Italian public broadcaster RAI from the vehicle. Officials from the opposition Democratic Party have called for an investigation into any ICE presence at the Games.
“The Democratic Party has submitted a parliamentary question to Piantedosi, requesting immediate clarification and the exclusion of any operational presence of ICE on Italian soil,” Matteo Mauri, a member of Parliament and the party’s lead on security, said in a statement.
Violence in the United States by ICE’s enforcement and removal arm has tainted how some Italian officials see the entire agency, said Daniel L. Byman, a professor at Georgetown University.
ICE enforcement “tends to drown out — especially these days — the investigative work that HSI does,” Saldaña said.
“Much of the problem,” she said, “is based on the credibility that’s been lost through what actions occurred in Minneapolis.”
Raji and Maese reported from Washington. Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report.
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