York expert available to comment on ICE at the Olympics
Feb. 12, 2026, TORONTO – While security at major international sporting events is always intensive, recent Olympics and other major sporting events have devoted well over a billion dollars to security alone, making it one of the largest and fastest‑growing costs of hosting.
York University Assistant Professor Amanda De Lisio in the Faculty of Health, School of Kinesiology & Health Science says recent fatal shootings by ICE and Border Patrol officers in the U.S., and their involvement in the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games through U.S. Homeland Security Investigations have understandably heightened public concern about the agency’s conduct.
“When security partnerships expand without accountability, the people most likely to be harmed are low‑income, racialized, and migrant women and children, the very groups these initiatives claim to protect,” says De Lisio, who explores this theme in her forthcoming book Play Naked.
De Lisio has worked with researchers in Rio de Janeiro to examine what happened with sex workers during the 2016 Olympics and is currently working with groups in Los Angeles, which is one of the hosts of this year’s FIFA Men’s World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic Games, to examine what is happening on the ground.
De Lisio is also available for interviews in Portuguese.
She can comment on:
- The growth of the mega-security apparatus at large sporting events
- Understanding how displacement brought on by mega-events affects vulnerable communities
- Sport mega-event construction and the financialization of housing
- Analysis of involvement of ICE in the year’s games and potential ramifications for upcoming Olympics and other large sporting events
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Media Contact: Emina Gamulin, York University Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca
