MILAN, Feb 5 (Reuters) - No agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are providing security for the Team USA delegation in Milan, a top security official for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) told reporters on Thursday.
"I can tell you unequivocally that there are no ICE agents that are part of the Team USA delegation on the ground here in Milan," Nicole Deal, Chief of Security and Athlete Services for USOPC, said on the eve of the Milano Cortina Olympics opening ceremony.
Backlash to reports that ICE agents were being sent to Italy led to protests in Milan. Those concerns were dismissed as baseless by Italy's interior ministeron Tuesday.
ICE and Border Patrol agents have come under heavy criticism in the United States over their enforcement of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, which resulted in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and under ICE, will have a small presence at the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) joint operations center in Milan focused on information sharing.
DSS will provide protection for U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Secret Service will protect Vice President JD Vance, both of whom arrived in Milan on Thursday.
Another "ICE OUT" protest was planned for Friday in Milan. Deal blamed the backlash on "misinformation and assumptions."
"I think when it comes to securing major events, a lot of people don't know what the capacities and capabilities and resource that are needed, so there's a lot of misinformation and assumptions that are made," she said.
"I think this inaccuracy that ICE is here on the ground securing the Games was one of those. So I'm glad we were able to set the record straight and provide on the ground truth that ICE is not part of the Team USA delegation."
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Milan, editing by Ed Osmond)
