Will there be ICE agentsthe controversial US immigration police, in the Winter Olympic Games from Milan-Cortina? The question, as improbable as it is uncomfortable, has burst, however implausible it may seem, into the Italian political debate a few days before the start of the competition, which will open on February 6. Not so much because there is a clear answer – for now there is none – but because the question has opened a new line of discussion between the Government of Giorgia Meloni and the opposition.
Even in Parliament there have been parliamentary questions about it. Senators of the Democratic Party (PD), the main center-left formation, They demand to know if data and information of citizens Italians and Europeans will be delivered to “lthe president’s militiamen [de EEUU, Donald] Trump“, as they wrote after practically all the main Italian newspapers reported this possibility. “The Government has to respond to us immediately […] This is a delicate issue that cannot be approached lightly,” continued Senator Cristina Tajani.
But Tajani has not been the only one. Carlo Calenda, former minister and leader of the centrist party Action (Action), has said that “ICE should not set foot in Italy.” What’s more, in his opinion, “it is a violent militia, poorly prepared and out of control.” And so does Luana Zanella, spokesperson for Alianza Verde e Izquierdas, who has accused ICE of being “an armed body” of a “violent and brutal nature.”
Mystery
For now, however, the matter is still remains a mystery. The Ministry of the Interior assured that “ICE will not operate in Italy” and that, “for the moment”, there is no evidence that agents from that agency will accompany the US delegation to escort it. However, it was also clarified that the composition of the American escort has not yet been officially communicated to the Italian authorities. And the minister himself, Matteo Piantedosi, defended that “each delegation can protect its members in the way it deems appropriate.” Furthermore, in his opinion, in the event that there were ICE agents present during the Games, “there would be nothing strange“.
Even more confusing has been the president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, leader of the League, a formation that is part of the government coalition. “The ICE will be here alone to protect to the vice president JD Vance and Marco Rubio“, he stated in a television interview that this Monday spread like wildfire. “It will be solely for defensive purposes, in case someone gives them a push or something like that,” he added. However, hours later, his office qualified the statements, pointing out that Fontana was talking about a “hypothesis.”
A “hypothesis” that, in any case, has agitated a significant part of the citizenry (to the point that they have also multiplied online signature petitions against ICE on the occasion of the Winter Games) in a country that, until recently, was among the most pro-American in Europe. Not in vain, according to some of the latest surveys, two thirds of Italians disapprove of Trumpand up to 39% declared themselves in favor of a possible Italian intervention in case the United States attacked Greenland.
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