Milan — Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Milan to protest the upcoming deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Winter Olympic GamesUnfazed by the fact that the agents will be stationed in the control room and not working on the streets.
The protest in Piazza 25 April, a square named after the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in 1945, attracted people from the left-leaning Democratic Party, the trade union confederation CGIL and the ANPI organizations that protect the memory of Italian partisan resistance during World War II, along with many others.
Organizers distributed plastic whistles, which participants blew while music blared from a truck. The protest was against the news that agents from A ICE will participate In the field of security for the American delegation versus what many saw as creeping fascism in the United States.
“No thanks, who Minnesota “To the world, along with anyone who fights for human rights,” one sign read. “Never again means never again for anyone,” and “Only ice in a spritz,” read another. “Never again means only ice in a spritz,” read another.
News of the deployment of ICE agents sparked a backlash in Italy. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said they were not welcome. Interior Minister Matteo Piantidosi was summoned to Parliament to testify about the troop deployment this week.
Demonstrator Silvana Grassi carried a sign that read, “Ice = Gestapo.” She said the scenes of ICE agents in Minneapolis shooting and killing protesters and detaining children were deeply disturbing.
“Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. It’s so terrible. It’s so terrible,” Grassi said. How did they elect such a terrible and evil man?
The ICE agents who will be deployed in Milan are not from the same unit as the immigration agents cracking down in Minnesota and other U.S. cities.
Homeland Security Investigations, a unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that focuses on cross-border crimes, often sends its officers to foreign events such as the Olympics to assist with security. ICE lever in Vanguard of the immigration campaign In the United States they are known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication that their officers were sent to Italy.
“Even if they’re not the same people, we don’t want them here,” Grassi said.
Paolo Bortoletto, who was also holding a sign, was aware that the officers would have an investigative role rather than a street role.
However, he said: “We do not want them in our country. We are a peaceful country. We do not want fascists. It is their ideas that disturb us.”
The Olympic Games begin on February 6 with an opening ceremony that will be attended by US Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.