Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate in the 2024 election, called officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, Nazis during a commencement speech at the University of Minnesota Law School on Saturday.
“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz told students. “They are in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons.”
“No chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye,” he said. “Just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans and disappeared.”
“Kamala Harris labeled President Trump a ‘fascist,’ now her former running mate Tim Walz calls ICE agents the ‘Gestapo,’” Sam Markstein, spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition, told JNS.
“ICE is part of the thin blue line protecting us every single day at great personal risk, and to compare them to Hitler’s Germany is historically absurd and a vile smear that trivializes the Holocaust,” said Markstein. “Tim Walz should know better, but this is what radical Democrats do when they don’t like law enforcement enforcing the law.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security slammed the remarks.
“It is absolutely sickening to compare ICE law enforcement agents to the Gestapo,” the department wrote. “Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong. ICE officers are now facing a 413% increase in assaults.”
“Our message is clear: Do not come to this country illegally,” it said. “If you do, we will arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”