ICE Seizes 22,000 Antiquities in Florida
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized more than 22,000 ancient artifacts in Florida last month, describing it as the largest object recovery in an ongoing antiquities-smuggling investigation in the state, according to Hyperallergic. The items include Greco-Roman coins, terracotta and glass vessels, jewelry, and mosaic frames, and are dated between 1,000 and 5,000 years old, with reported origins across Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, and the Levant. The Tampa Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit worked with archaeological specialists and researchers at the University of South Florida and the University of Pennsylvania to authenticate, contextualize, conserve, and document the seized objects. The article situates the seizure within broader criticism of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), noting that in April a Customs and Border Protection crew building Donald Trump’s border wall damaged about a quarter of Arizona’s millennium-old Las Playas Intaglio site. It also reports that DHS in July waived many environmental, public health, and historic-preservation requirements to accelerate border-barrier construction from Texas’s Big Bend region to Amistad Reservoir, potentially threatening more than 400 archaeological sites.
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