MILAN (AP) — News that a unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be present during the upcoming Winter Games has set off concern and confusion in Italy, where people have expressed outrage at the inclusion of an agency that has dominated headlines for leading the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within ICE that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. HSI officers are separate from the ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there was no indication ERO officers were being sent to Italy.
That distinction, however, wasn’t immediately clear to local media Tuesday.
The reaction among some in Italy reflects not only a worsening perception abroad of the administration's tactics on immigration but also underscores a broader rift between the U.S. under President Donald Trump and its international allies.
Vague reports that ICE would be deployed in some capacity surfaced over the weekend, resulting in a series of online petitions gathering support of people opposed to the presence of ICE at the Games. They followed a RAI news report that aired Sunday showing an Italian news crew being threatened in Minneapolis by ICE agents. Trump’s immigration crackdown has in recent weeks intensified in Minneapolis, leading to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal immigration officers.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said that ICE would not be welcome in his city, which is hosting the Feb. 6 opening ceremony to be attended by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, as well as most ice sports.
“This is a militia that kills, a militia that enters into the homes of people, signing their own permission slips. It is clear they are not welcome in Milan, without a doubt,” Sala told RTL Radio 102.
Italy’s Interior Ministry said later that the HSI investigators would be stationed at a control room at the U.S. Consulate in Milan, in a support role with other U.S. law enforcement agencies, and that they would not include personnel involved in immigration controls in the United States. It noted in a statement issued after Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and U.S. Ambassador Tilman Fertitta met Tuesday morning that HSI agents are present in more than 50 countries, including for many years Italy.
"All of the security operations in the territory remain as always the exclusive responsibility and direction of Italian authorities,'' the ministry said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is broken into various arms. Enforcement and Removal Operations is the part of the agency that is tasked with monitoring, arresting and removing foreigners who no longer have the right to be in the U.S. They’re the officers most directly tasked with carrying out Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Another arm of ICE is Homeland Security Investigations. Agents from HSI conduct investigations into anything that has a cross-border nexus from human smuggling to fentanyl trafficking to smuggling of cultural artifacts. Agents from HSI are stationed in embassies around the world to facilitate their investigations and build relations with local law enforcement in those countries.
The ICE agents deployed to Italy for the Games will have a different role from the one seen in immigration crackdowns in the U.S., officials have stressed.
“Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries,″ the 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.”
A U.S official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security measures said the general public likely wouldn’t even see or be aware of the HSI agents on the ground during the Olympics. The official said HSI agents would be working behind the scenes, mainly in offices or the U.S. consulate in Milan, as they have done during previous international events.
For years HSI distanced itself from anything having to do with deportations or immigration enforcement. At one point they got new branding and email addresses to set themselves apart because agents working in parts of the country with strong political opposition to immigration enforcement wouldn’t get their emails answered because they had an ICE.gov address.
Under the Trump administration, however, HSI agents have been working closer with ICE’s other arm — the deportation officers — to focus more on immigration issues. They’ve been going out on operations with deportation officers and focusing more on immigration fraud cases.
The International Olympic Committee underlined in a statement that security “is the responsibility of the authorities of the host country, who work closely with the participating delegations.”
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee said that it works with the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service, the IOC and the host nation for security planning, ”but not with U.S. domestic law enforcement or immigration agencies.''
The reaction in Italy highlights increasingly fraught relations between Trump and the U.S.' traditional allies in Europe, which have been tested during the president's second term over his threats to take over Greenland.
Piantedosi presided over a meeting of law enforcement and intelligence services on Tuesday to discuss security for the Games. More than 6,000 police and other agents will be deployed to secure what is billed as the most spread out Games in Olympic history, involving seven towns and cities spread across a broad swath of northern Italy from Milan to the Austrian border.
The Interior Minister is Italy’s top law enforcement official, charged with security for the Games, which is coordinated with regional prefects.
Asked about the potential deployment over the weekend, he gave a diplomatic shrug: “I don’t see what the problem would be,″ the news agency ANSA quoted him as saying.
Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Matthew Lee in Washington; Graham Dunbar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland; and Eddie Pells in Denver contributed to this report.
FILE - Milan's mayor Giuseppe Sala attends Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics cauldron lighting, in front of the Quirinale Presidential Palace, in Rome, Friday Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
FILE - Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi waits for U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, at the Viminale Interior Ministry headquarters, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Rome. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool, File)
FILE - This photo shows the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events which will take place during the upcoming Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti, File)
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to revive his struggling government but faced growing calls to resign after a disastrous set of local and regional elections for his Labour Party.
As the final results came in Saturday, Labour suffered a net loss of more than 1,100 local council seats across England, lost control of several local authorities it had held for decades and was booted from power in Wales after 27 years. Anti-immigration party Reform UK gained over 1,300 seats across England and made significant gains in legislative elections in Wales and Scotland.
It was a blunt verdict from voters in elections widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he led the center-left party to power less than two years ago.
Here are five things we’ve learned from the elections.
Starmer insisted he would not walk away and "plunge the country into chaos,” and the dire election results did not produce an immediate challenge to his leadership.
"The right thing to do is rebuild and show the path forward,” Starmer said Saturday. “That’s what I’m going to do in the coming days.”
Starmer’s Cabinet colleagues expressed support, and none of the high-profile Labour politicians considered potential challengers has made a move. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham are keeping quiet for now.
But a growing number of Labour lawmakers urged the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure this year. British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.
“There has to be a timetable,” legislator Clive Betts told the BBC. Another lawmaker, Tony Vaughan, said there should be an “orderly transition of leadership.”
Starmer tried to demonstrate change on Saturday by bringing back two figures from past Labour governments. He made former Prime Minister Gordon Brown a special envoy on global finance, and appointed the party's ex-deputy leader Harriet Harman an adviser on women and girls.
Starmer is due to make a speech on Monday in an attempt to regain momentum, before the government sets out its legislative plans on Wednesday in a speech delivered by King Charles III at the State Opening of Parliament.
The elections were a breakthrough for Reform UK, the latest hard-right party led by the veteran nationalist politician Nigel Farage.
Running on an anti-establishment and anti-immigration message, the party won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north, such as Sunderland, that were solid Labour turf for decades. It also made gains from the Conservatives in areas like the county of Essex, east of London, and increased its vote share in Wales and Scotland, new terrain for the party.
Farage said the results marked a “historic change in British politics.” He said he's confident that “voters who have come to us are not doing it as a short-term protest.”
Reform UK currently holds just eight of the 650 seats in the House of Commons and it’s unclear whether it could repeat its success in a national election.
The elections produced semiautonomous administrations in Scotland and Wales led by parties devoted to independence and the breakup of the United Kingdom — though neither has that policy on the front burner.
The Scottish National Party, which has governed in Edinburgh since 2007, won another term but fell short of a majority, meaning an independence referendum is unlikely. Labour and Reform tied in a distant second place.
Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales) won the most seats in the Cardiff-based legislature, the Senedd. The party, which has an ambition for Wales to leave the U.K. but no plan to do so anytime soon, fell short of a majority but will likely form the new government. Reform came second and Labour a distant third in one of its most historic heartlands, with outgoing First Minister Eluned Morgan losing her seat.
The economy lies at the heart of Labour’s troubles, as it does for many incumbent governments.
Since ending 14 years of Conservative rule roiled by austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic, Labour has struggled to ease the cost of living and jump-start a sluggish economy against the tough economic backdrop of war in Ukraine and, more recently, Iran. Starmer also has angered supporters with attempts to cut welfare spending, some of which were reversed after Labour revolts.
Some in Labour say the government's achievements, including protections for renters and a higher minimum wage, are going unnoticed. Many blame Starmer, an uninspiring leader distracted by scandals including his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.
But Stephen Houghton, the outgoing leader of Barnsley council in northern England, where Labour lost to Reform, said the problem “goes deeper than the prime minister.”
“This has been coming for 30 years around the country, in post-industrial communities, coastal communities, that have been left behind,” he said. “You can change prime ministers all day long. If you don’t change policy, it’s not going to change.”
The results reflect a fragmentation of U.K. politics after decades of domination by Labour and the Conservative Party, which also suffered major losses on Thursday.
The elections offered voters a rainbow of choices, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.
But the big winners were populist insurgents, Reform UK and the Green Party, whose focus has expanded from the environment to social justice and the Palestinian cause under self-described “eco populist” leader Zack Polanski. The Greens won hundreds of council seats from Labour in urban centers and university towns and took control of several local authorities.
Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics, said the results suggest the next national election, due by 2029, won’t produce a majority for any party.
“So then you’re in the world of, after the election, two or three big minority parties trying to work out how they would govern,” he said — something traditionally considered “very un-British.”
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking to the media after meeting Labour Party members during a visit to AFC Wimbledon in south London, Saturday May 9, 2026. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA via AP)
First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney with some of the newly elected SNP MSPs in Edinburgh, Saturday May 9, 2026, following the 2026 Holyrood elections. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy meeting Labour Party members during a visit to AFC Wimbledon in south London, Saturday May 9, 2026. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA via AP)
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking to the media after meeting Labour Party members during a visit to AFC Wimbledon in south London, Saturday May 9, 2026. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA via AP)
Observers from the Scottish National Party (SNP) watch as votes are counted for the 2026 Holyrood elections, at Dewars Centre in Perth, Scotland, Friday May 8, 2026. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks to supporters at Chelmsford City Racecourse, Friday May 8, 2026, in Essex, England, following the 2026 local election results. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to Labour Party members at Kingsdown Methodist Church Hall, in Ealing, west London, Friday May 8, 2026, a day after the local elections. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)
