Visitors walk past the Olympic Rings on Wednesday in Milan, Italy. ICE agents at the Olympics will be part of the Homeland Security Investigations team.Maja Hitij/Getty Images
The Italian government moved quickly to reassure outraged citizens and other Europeans that ICE agents heading to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics next week will not be on the streets wielding guns, but confined to diplomatic security roles.
Officers from ICE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – will “work exclusively in their diplomatic premises” at the U.S. consulate in Milan, said Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, on Tuesday. He issued the statement after meeting with U.S. Ambassador Tilman Fertitta, a billionaire businessman who is a friend of President Donald Trump.
The ICE agents deployed will be part of the Homeland Security Investigations team. HSI is a division of ICE, which in turn operates within the Department of Homeland Security.
In a social media statement on Tuesday, Homeland Security said: “Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement in foreign countries. At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is supporting the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations.”
“All security operations remain under Italian authority,” the department added.
News of ICE agents at the Olympics, which start Feb. 6, shocked Italians, who have been reading and watching videos about the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis by ICE and Border Patrol agents.
On Jan. 7, Renee Nicole Macklin Good was shot at point-blank range by an ICE agent as she was slowly driving away from him. She was unarmed. Last Saturday, intensive-care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti was killed by agents from Border Patrol, which is part of Homeland Security. Mr. Pretti was carrying a licensed gun, but video appears to show the agents removing the weapon while he was restrained on the ground, before he was shot 10 times.
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Many Italians were unaware that ICE operates overseas.
The mayor of Milan, one of the Olympic host cities, was incensed when he learned early this week that ICE agents were en route. “This is a militia that kills, a militia that enters the homes of people, signing their own permission slips,” he told reporters. “It is clear they are not welcome in Milan, without a doubt.”
Carlo Calenda, leader of the small, centrist Azione (Action), party, said that “ICE must not set foot in Italy” and described the agency as an “out of control militia.”
In a statement, Manon Aubry and Martin Schirdewan, co-presidents of the Left party, which has 46 seats in the European Parliament, said that the “European Union must take steps to prevent the entry of such forces onto its territory. Accordingly we call on the European Union to impose restrictive measures, namely travel bans, on all ICE agents effective immediately.”
Agents from ICE-controlled Homeland Security Investigations have been operating overseas for more than two decades. ICE’s website says HSI has 90 offices in more than 50 countries, including branches in Rome, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
“Together with our partners abroad, we collect evidence; arrest criminals; seize drugs, money, weapons, and other items; stop threats from traveling to the United States, and conduct other activities to protect the public from those seeking to harm our country,” it says.
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HSI, through ICE, occasionally issues press releases overseas. The last one directly related to an Italian operation dates from 2015, when HSI announced it had helped bust a cultural trafficking syndicate.
With HSI’s help, the Italian Ministry of Culture recovered more than 5,000 artifacts worth more than €50-million that had been stolen by Gianfranco Becchina, described by ICE as “one of Italy’s most prolific traffickers of illicit cultural property.” HSI had learned through Italian police that some of the objects, including Etruscan statues, were being offered at a New York auction house and obtained a seizure warrant.
A U.S. diplomat told The Globe and Mail that the ICE/HSI agents in the Rome embassy rarely work on immigration matters. He said they focus on customs and port security issues, such as investigations into container shipments that may carry illegal drugs or weapons. The Globe is not naming the source because they are not authorized to speak to the press.