Berlin, Jan 28, (dpa/GNA) – Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday, that United States Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents will not be patrolling the streets at the Milano Cortina Olympics, but would help protect the US delegation.
There has been concern and outrage in Italy over the reported expected presence of ICE agents at the Olympic Games, which start on February 6, with the main opening ceremony in Milan’s San Siro Stadium.
The US delegation is led by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marc Rubio – both strong proponents of US President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement actions.
“Let’s be clear: it’s not that they are coming to maintain public order in the streets. They are coming to collaborate in the operations rooms,” the ANSA news agency quoted Tajani as telling reporters.
Tajani said Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi will meet with the US ambassador to Italy on Tuesday “to clarify this.”
But Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala – one of the most outspoken critics of ICE in Italy – doesn’t want the US agents on his city’s streets.
“It is clear they are not welcome in Milan, without a doubt,” he told RTL Radio 102.
“They are not aligned with our democratic way of managing security,” he added.
Tajani said that the ICE presence in Italy will not be “like those people [who] are out on the streets in Minneapolis,” referring to ICE raids in the US city and the fatal shootings of two US citizens by ICE agents, which has caused outrage and protests.
“It’s not like the SS are coming,” Tajani was quoted as saying, referring to Nazi Germany’s paramilitary organization.
“It is not that people with machine guns and covered faces are coming, but that officials from a department are coming. They are coming because it is the department responsible for counter-terrorism,” he said, referring to the Homeland Security Investigations division of ICE.
Milano Cortina organizing committee chief Giovanni Malago, said this is a normal procedure when heads of state or other leading officials visit the games, and that other countries also have their own security operations for dignitaries in these cases.
Malago said the ICE agents were there for “technical” reasons and not part of the Olympic security operation.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said security was a matter for the host country which works closely together with the participating delegations.
GNA