The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sharply criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) for comparing immigration enforcement officers under President Trump to the secret police force of Nazi Germany in a commencement speech over the weekend.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said likening the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to the Gestapo is “sickening” in a statement Tuesday.
“Governor Walz’s comments comparing ICE agents to the Gestapo is sickening,” McLaughlin said. “This type of rhetoric and demonization of ICE officers has led to our officers facing a 413% increase in assaults.”
“While politicians like Walz fight to protect criminal illegal aliens, our ICE officers will continue putting their lives and safety on the line to arrest murderers, kidnappers, and pedophiles that were let into our country by the previous administration’s open border policies,” McLaughlin continued.
Walz on Saturday criticized the Trump administration’s fast-tracked deportations of migrants and pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses, including the way some ICE agents have carried out the arrests at night or by plainclothes officers.
“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said during the University of Minnesota Law School graduation Saturday.
“They’re 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, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared,” he added.
Numerous arrest videos posted online have shown officers making ambush arrests since Trump took office.
“This is what the crumbling of rule of law looks like in real time. And it’s exactly what the founders of this nation feared: a tyrant, abusing power to persecute scapegoats and enemies,” Walz said.