U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will not be far away when World Cup games are played in Canada, the CBC reported.
The report comes amid questions about ICEs involvement in the World Cup after the agency deployed agents to Italy for the Olympics.
According to the CBC, ICE agents will not be permitted to carry weapons or make arrests. Instead, they will work with Canadian authorities on joint investigations involving narcotics, weapons smuggling and human trafficking.
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The agents will be from the agencys Homeland Security Investigations branch. HSI has offices in five Canadian cities where the U.S. maintains consulates, including two World Cup host cities: Vancouver and Toronto.
Toronto City Council voted in late March to express opposition to ICEs presence and instructed city staff to avoid supporting ICE actions within Toronto, particularly during the World Cup.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a component of ICE within DHS, operates in close partnership with Canadian law enforcement to combat transnational crime and protect communities on both sides of the border. HSI special agents investigate and enforce laws related to transnational crime, including human trafficking, child exploitation, weapons and drug smuggling, financial fraud, and more, wrote Baxter Hunt, consul general at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto.
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Hunt cited several partnerships between U.S. and Canadian authorities that disrupted narcotics and firearm smuggling between the two countries.
Hunt added that there will not be a deployment of additional ICE agents to Canada during the World Cup.
The World Cup will be co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States.
An essential part of this cooperation is the extraordinary joint effort of the United States, Canada and Mexico to ensure the safety of the event, Hunt wrote.