95bFM ICE Presence at Milan Winter Olympics reveals politicisation of the games
20 February, 2026
Interview by Caeden Tipler, adapted by Gabriel Timpson-Neill
Dr. Keith Rathbone says that the public response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence at the Winter Olympics in Milan shows the entrenched politicisation of the games. He adds that international sports organizations’ focus on neutrality and “spreading peace between nations” has led to public frustration.
The United States’ deployment of ICE agents to the Winter Olympics in Milan has caused uproar at home and abroad, with the Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala calling the agency a “milita that kills”. The Italian government has defended the decision, with Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani saying that no ICE agents would appear on the streets and were merely “responsible for counter-terrorism”.
Concern over ICE’s presence at the Games follows a long period of violence by the agency. ICE operations in Minneapolis led to the killings of civilians Alex Pretti and Reneé Good, leading to massive protests. US citizens living abroad are worried they too could become ICE targets.
Dr. Keith Rathbone, a senior lecturer in Modern European History and Sports History at Macquarie University, told 95bFM’s The Wire that while the reaction from Italians angry over ICE are understandable, there have been similar outcries about the conduct of security at other games.
“For this Olympic Games, there are about 7,000 or more officers involved in security… The Paris Olympics were in many ways one of the most securitized games of all time, maybe only topped by Beijing. For Paris, there [were] about 40,000 police officers involved.”
He says that a major cause of the outrage over the dispatching of ICE agents is due to a misunderstanding of the official function of the agency.
“I want to be very clear that this ICE agency oversees a lot of different departments. This particular group of people who work under ICE actually aren't involved in deportation proceedings, but look at cross-border crime.
“For a lot of locals, it can be hard to see the difference, and they wonder what the difference is, and whether these people need to be in Italy at all.”
He says that the ramped-up security for American athletes overseas is due to the increasing involvement of geopolitics in the games, and how the American government views its athletes abroad as “kind of informal diplomats”, thereby receiving protection befitting state employees.
Dr. Rathbone says that ICE’s involvement in the Winter Games has come at a precarious time for international sport organizations like FIFA and IOC, who are trying to avoid politicisation.
“There's a growing concern in the international sport community about the kind of imbalance in the way in which global sport organizations like the IOC or FIFA respond to violence.”
While Russian athletes have been excluded from many international games since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022, there has been criticism of other countries like Israel’s continued presence despite atrocities in Palestine.
Dr. Rathbone says that while international sports organizations like IOC and FIFA are supposed to “spread peaceful relations between nations” as is stated in their charters, they have faced difficulties in actually implementing these resolutions.
“There is a growing number of people who, on one hand, are going, why are we excluding Russian athletes if our mission is peace? And another group of people are going, we should exclude any belligerent, any athletes from any nation that's been belligerent.”
He says that, thanks to the selective policy of international sports organizations on which athletes to include or exclude, FIFA and IOC have placed themselves in the difficult position of defending Israeli athletes’ right to participate.
“The IOC hates this. They hate that the Games become politicised by athletes. They hate that the Games become politicised by local residents.”
Regardless, Dr. Rathbone also says that the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028 will almost certainly “see these kinds of protests… if not larger protests.”
