ICE Agents Get a Security Role at the Milan Winter Olympics, and Italian Officials Object

In statements on January 26 and 27, 2026, ICE and the U.S. embassy in Rome confirmed that a unit of ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents would support the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which open February 6. ICE said the agents would help "vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations," would run no enforcement operations, and that "all security operations remain under Italian authority." Lombardy region president Attilio Fontana had said Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be protected by ICE bodyguards at the Games.

The deployment placed a domestic immigration enforcement agency, then the subject of two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis within a month, into a foreign host country's Olympic security arrangement. Two Italian opposition parties opened petitions calling on the government to bar the agents.

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said the agents were not welcome "because they don't guarantee they're aligned with our democratic security management methods," adding: "This is a militia that kills."