By COLLEEN BARRY, DAVID BILLER and TRISHA THOMAS, The Related Press
MILAN (AP) — Information {that a} unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can be current throughout the upcoming Winter Games has set off concern and confusion in Italy, the place individuals have expressed outrage on the inclusion of an company that has dominated headlines for main the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Homeland Safety Investigations, a unit inside ICE that focuses on cross-border crimes, regularly sends its officers to abroad occasions just like the Olympics to help with safety. HSI officers are separate from the ICE arm on the forefront of the immigration crackdown referred to as Enforcement and Elimination Operations, and there was no indication ERO officers had been being despatched to Italy.
That distinction, nonetheless, wasn’t instantly clear to native media on Tuesday morning.
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Protesters reveal towards Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer final week, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photograph/Jen Golbeck)
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Protesters reveal towards Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer final week, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photograph/Jen Golbeck)
Italy reacts to US safety deployment
The response amongst some in Italy displays not solely a worsening notion overseas of the administration’s ways on immigration but additionally underscores a broader rift between the U.S. below President Donald Trump and its worldwide allies.
Obscure experiences that ICE can be deployed in some capability surfaced over the weekend, leading to a collection of on-line petitions gathering assist of individuals against the presence of ICE on the Video games. They adopted a RAI information report that aired Sunday displaying an Italian information crew being threatened in Minneapolis by ICE brokers. Trump’s immigration crackdown has in current weeks intensified in Minneapolis, resulting in the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens by the hands of federal immigration officers.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala mentioned that ICE wouldn’t be welcome in his metropolis, which is internet hosting the Feb. 6 opening ceremony to be attended by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, in addition to most ice sports activities.
“This can be a militia that kills, a militia that enters into the properties of individuals, signing their own permission slips. It’s clear they aren’t welcome in Milan, undoubtedly,” Sala informed RTL Radio 102.
Italy’s Inside Ministry mentioned later that the HSI investigators can be stationed at a management room on the U.S. Consulate in Milan, in a assist function with different U.S. legislation enforcement companies, and that they’d not embody personnel concerned in immigration controls in america. It famous in an announcement issued after Inside Minister Matteo Piantedosi and U.S. Ambassador Tilman Fertitta met Tuesday morning that HSI brokers are current in additional than 50 international locations, together with for a few years Italy.
“The entire safety operations within the territory stay as at all times the unique duty and route of Italian authorities,” the ministry mentioned.
ICE models breakdown
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is damaged into varied arms. Enforcement and Elimination Operations is the a part of the company that’s tasked with monitoring, arresting and eradicating foreigners who now not have the suitable to be within the U.S. They’re the officers most straight tasked with finishing up Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
One other arm of ICE is Homeland Safety Investigations. Brokers from HSI conduct investigations into something that has a cross-border nexus from human smuggling to fentanyl trafficking to smuggling of cultural artifacts. Brokers from HSI are stationed in embassies around the globe to facilitate their investigations and construct relations with native legislation enforcement in these international locations.
The ICE brokers deployed to Italy for the Video games can have a unique function from the one seen in immigration crackdowns within the U.S., officers have harassed.
“Clearly, ICE doesn’t conduct immigration enforcement operations in international international locations,″ the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned in an announcement Tuesday.
“On the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Safety Investigations is supporting the U.S. Division of State’s Diplomatic Safety Service and host nation to vet and mitigate dangers from transnational felony organizations. All safety operations stay below Italian authority.”
A U.S official talking on situation of anonymity to debate safety measures mentioned most people possible wouldn’t even see or pay attention to the HSI brokers on the bottom throughout the Olympics. The official mentioned HSI brokers can be working behind the scenes, primarily in places of work or the U.S. consulate in Milan, as they’ve carried out throughout earlier worldwide occasions.
For years HSI distanced itself from something having to do with deportations or immigration enforcement. At one level they acquired new branding and e mail addresses to set themselves aside as a result of brokers working in elements of the nation with robust political opposition to immigration enforcement wouldn’t get their emails answered as a result of they’d an ICE.gov deal with.
Underneath the Trump administration, nonetheless, HSI brokers have been working nearer with ICE’s different arm — the deportation officers — to focus extra on immigration points. They’ve been going out on operations with deportation officers and focusing extra on immigration fraud instances.
Response underscores fraught ties
The Worldwide Olympic Committee underlined in an announcement that safety “is the duty of the authorities of the host nation, who work intently with the collaborating delegations.”
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee mentioned that it really works with the U.S. Division of State’s Diplomatic Safety Service, the IOC and the host nation for safety planning, ”however not with U.S. home legislation enforcement or immigration companies.”
The response in Italy highlights more and more fraught relations between Trump and the U.S.’ conventional allies in Europe, which have been examined throughout the president’s second time period over his threats to take over Greenland.
Piantedosi presided over a gathering of legislation enforcement and intelligence providers on Tuesday to debate safety for the Video games. Greater than 6,000 police and different brokers shall be deployed to safe what’s billed as probably the most unfold out Video games in Olympic historical past, involving seven cities and cities unfold throughout a broad swath of northern Italy from Milan to the Austrian border.
The Inside Minister is Italy’s high legislation enforcement official, charged with safety for the Video games, which is coordinated with regional prefects.
Requested concerning the potential deployment over the weekend, he gave a diplomatic shrug: “I don’t see what the issue can be,″ the information company ANSA quoted him as saying.
Barry reported from Milan. Related Press writers Rebecca Santana and Matthew Lee contributed from Washington and Graham Dunbar from Crans-Montana, Switzerland and Eddie Pells in Denver, Colorado.
