Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are taking their act on the road and heading overseas, and some Europeans aren’t too happy about it. Let the pearl clutching begin.
As is apparently custom for the United States, a contingent of ICE agents, specifically from the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit, are heading to Italy to help with security at the Winter Olympic games in Milan. HSI focuses on cross-border crimes, as opposed to the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) unit, which is responsible for apprehending illegal aliens in the United States; it’s ERO that you’re seeing on the streets of Minneapolis. The two units are completely separate arms of ICE.
RELATED: Skater Whose Parents Died in DC Mid-Air Collision Is on His Way to the Olympics
Alaska Man Monday: Olympics, and a Happy Ending for Some Neglected Animals
The important distinction between the two units seems to be lost on some European officials, who are in full panic mode over the efforts of the U.S. government to help keep the peace at the Winter Games by sending in ICE. Milan’s mayor calls ICE “a militia that kills,” and says the agents “are not welcome in Milan.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala issued a fiery statement during an interview on Italian radio this week, calling ICE a dangerous “militia” that he would not allow into his city.
“This is a militia that kills, a militia that enters into the homes of people, signing their own permission slips,” Sala told a local Italian radio station, referencing a recent ICE memo allowing the use of administrative warrants, rather than judicial warrants, to enter homes in the U.S.
“It is clear they are not welcome in Milan, without a doubt,” he added. The city is set to host the Feb. 6 opening ceremony, which Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to attend.
Mayor Sala’s uninformed take on the situation was likely fueled by a spate a vague media reports in the European press that ICE was deploying agents to Italy. He wasn’t the only one to misunderstand the specifics, and online petitions soon popped up demanding that ICE be banned from having a presence at the Games. Footage of an Italian news crew accosting ICE agents in Minneapolis didn’t help the matter any.
It turns out the pearl clutching by many Europeans is all for naught, as the HSI agents will be operating from a control room at the U.S. Consulate in Milan as it provides security support for American diplomats attending the Games, and will not, in fact, be raiding private residences and frog-marching Europeans to the gallows.
Italy’s Interior Ministry said later that the HSI investigators would be stationed at a control room at the U.S. Consulate in Milan, in a support role with other U.S. law enforcement agencies, and that they would not include personnel involved in immigration controls in the United States. It noted in a statement issued after Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and U.S. Ambassador Tilman Fertitta met Tuesday morning that HSI agents are present in more than 50 countries, including for many years Italy.
“All of the security operations in the territory remain as always the exclusive responsibility and direction of Italian authorities,’’ the ministry said.
Hopefully, this overreaction isn’t a harbinger of things to come for American athletes at the Games, but leftists of all nationalities seem incapable of even the smallest bits of decorum these days. Be on the lookout for agitators to take advantage of having the world’s attention focused on the Winter Games.
The 2026 Winter Olympics (Milano Cortina) will be held February 6 – 22.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy RedState’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
