By Crispian Balmer and Alvise Armellini
ROME, Jan 27 (Reuters) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel will help protect U.S. delegations at the Winter Olympics in Italy, a U.S. embassy source said on Tuesday, confirming local media reports and prompting anger among some Italian politicians.
ICE and Border Patrol agents have come under heavy criticism in the United States over their enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown after two U.S. citizens were shot dead in separate incidents this month in the state of Minnesota.
The embassy source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division would back up the U.S. State Department’s security service at the February 6-22 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
The HSI agents will not carry out any immigration enforcement activity while in Italy but will rather aim to “mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations”, the source said, without elaborating.
“All security operations remain under Italian authority,” the source added.
HSI has been present at major sport events in both the U.S. and abroad in the past, including previous Olympic Games, as part of international partnerships related to human trafficking and drug trafficking, one former official said.
Spokespeople for ICE did not immediately respond to questions about the operation in Italy. A State Department spokesperson said that, as in past Olympics, multiple federal agencies would be helping with security, including HSI.
ITALIAN POLITICIANS CALL FOR ICE TO BE BANNED
Despite assurances that there is nothing unusual about the HSI deployment, Italian politicians criticised the involvement of ICE in next month’s Games, highlighting how the image of the United States has been tarnished in recent months.
“It seems sheer idiocy to me,” Maurizio Lupi, leader of a small centrist party in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition, told la Repubblica daily.
The left-leaning mayor of Milan, one of the cities co-hosting the Olympics, called ICE “a militia that kills”.
Speaking to RTL 102.5 radio, Giuseppe Sala said: “It’s clear that they’re not welcome in Milan, there’s no doubt about it.”
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called for a measured response. “We’re not talking about the (ICE people) who were out on the streets of Minneapolis… It’s not as if the (Nazi) SS are arriving,” he told reporters at a Holocaust memorial event.
While many ICE agents in the U.S. have been detailed to support routine immigration enforcement, HSI’s mission is to focus on transnational crime.
But Italia Viva, a centrist opposition party led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, said agents affiliated with ICE did not represent Italian values and should be barred entry.
The hard-left USB trade union said it would hold an “ICE OUT” rally in central Milan on February 6, to coincide with the opening ceremony.
(Additional reporting by Ted Hesson, Brad Heath and Humeyra Pamuk in WashingtonEditing by Gareth Jones)
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