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Students demand ICE agents protecting US delegation leave amid global outrage over Trump’s brutal deportation push.
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infoHundreds of protesters gathered in Milan to reject the presence of United States immigration agents in the city before the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Games.
The student-led demonstration on Friday featured banners reading “ICE should be in my drinks, not my city” in reaction to the reported presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials providing security for the United States delegation at the games.
list of 3 itemsend of listICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is a separate division from the department playing a lead role in US President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation push at home, which provoked global outrage after the fatal shootings of two US citizens and the detention of a five-year-old and his father.
Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi insisted this week that HSI would operate only within US diplomatic missions, insisting that officials “are not operational agents” and “have no executive function”.
But students in Milan were not convinced, turning up in force on the streets with plastic whistles, which have become a symbol of anti-ICE rallies in the US, and calling for visiting US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to leave.
Protester Giacomo Calvi told the AFP news agency he was protesting the US “anti-immigration police, which are carrying out all kinds of violence in the United States”.
Protesters spray paint on a wall during a demonstration against ICE organised by students at the 2026 Winter Games, in Milan, Italy, on Friday [Luca Bruno/AP Photo]“I thought that this was a good opportunity to show that the rest of the world is not OK with what’s happening in Minnesota,” Katie Legare, a protester from Minnesota currently studying in Europe, told the news agency Reuters.
‘Shared values’
The opening extravaganza at the event’s main hub in Milan’s San Siro Stadium was attended by Vance and Rubio, with pop diva Mariah Carey performing “Volare” for the crowd.
Vance is on a weeklong visit to Italy at a time when relations with Europe have been strained under the Trump administration, which has claimed Europe is facing “civilisational erasure” due to mass migration.
The US vice president and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is close to Trump, hailed their “shared values” on Friday, with the latter calling the games an event that brings together Italy and the US, and “Western civilisation”.
Vance’s office said in a statement that he and the prime minister discussed the strength of bilateral relations between the nations and mutual efforts to improve the business and investment climate.
More than 3,500 athletes from 93 countries will compete in this year’s winter games, which is taking place over a large area of northern Italy spanning about 8,500 square miles (more than 22,000 square kilometres).
While the main opening ceremony was held in San Siro, where the five Olympic rings were lowered into the stadium, athletes also participated in simultaneous festivities held in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomite mountains, Livigno in the Alps, and Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento.
The opening stages also honoured the late Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who made Milan his base and died last September, with additional tributes made to other icons of Italian culture, including artist Leonardo da Vinci and composer Giacomo Puccini.