JD Vance Is Booed at Olympics While Thousands Protest U.S. Sending ICE Agents to Games in Italy

[Uncle Joe]

With the 2026 Winter Olympics underway in Italy, we speak with writer and academic Jules Boykoff, author of six books about the Olympics, who says Milan is hosting the Games despite widespread public opposition from locals. Boykoff says that while the Olympics have attempted in recent years to institute some "cosmetic" reforms, "they don't get at the core elements that really plague the Olympic Games, and that's overspending, that's the intensification of militarized policing, that's greenwashing, that's corruption, that's the displacement of local populations."

Boykoff's recent piece for The Nation, co-authored with Dave Zirin, is headlined "Get Ready for This Year's Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics."

[Deuxcents]

1. WTH is ICE doing in Italy at the Olympics? They gonna be going to all the games?

Congress needs to audit their budget and defund some of the expenditures.

[Wiz Imp]

4. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a unit within ICE that focuses on cross-border crimes,

is who is in Italy.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ice-italy-olympics-hsi-9.7067299

HSI officers are separate from the ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdowns currently being undertaken in U.S. cities — known as Enforcement and Removal Operations — and there is no indication ERO officers are being sent to Italy.

"Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries,″ the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Tuesday.

"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."

ICE has been present at major sports events in both the U.S. and abroad in the past, including at previous Olympic Games, as part of international partnerships related to human trafficking and drug trafficking, Jason Houser, who served as ICE chief of staff under former U.S. president Joe Biden, said in an interview with Reuters.

Italy's Interior Ministry says that the HSI investigators will be stationed at a control room in the U.S. Consulate in Milan, working in a support role with other U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Agents from HSI are commonly stationed in embassies around the world to facilitate their investigations and build relations with local law enforcement in those countries. They conduct investigations into anything that has a cross-border element to it, from human smuggling to fentanyl trafficking to smuggling of cultural artifacts.

https://www.newsweek.com/italy-issues-update-ice-role-winter-olympics-11435664

Italy has issued an update regarding its security plans for the 2026 Winter Olympics, emphasizing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will have no role "on the ground."

Italy's Interior Ministry said in a statement that ICE's investigative body—and "not the operational arm of the agency"—would work only within U.S. diplomatic offices, such as the U.S. Consulate in Milan.

"All security operations on Italian territory remain, as always, under the exclusive responsibility and direction of the Italian authorities," the ministry said.

Agents who are part of the investigative arm of ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), are present in over 50 countries and have been in Italy for a number of years

[Deuxcents]

5. Thank you for this information..I just couldn't understand what I thought I was hearing. Sure helps with information

[Wiz Imp]

2. There are not "ICE Agents" at the Olympics performing immigration ebforcement.

There are HSI personnel which have been located in Italy continuously for years. They are there at the request of the Italian Government and are under their jurisdiction while there. They have no connection to the goons harassing citizens as well as immigrants in US.

[Deuxcents]

6. Thanks..knowledge is power and now I know what I didn't know before. Always learn something here 🌺

[Submariner]

3. the GOP Olympic sport is international embarrassment