Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz told an audience of graduating students that the nation’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are “Trump’s Modern Gestapo.”
The Gestapo was the secret police created by Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist regime in the 1930s. The name is an abbreviation of a German noun, Geheime Staatspolizei [Secret State Police], which was used to murder a vast number of people throughout Europe.
In contrast, ICE protects Americans’ borders, communities, and livelihoods from the destructive mass migration encouraged by Walz and other Democrats. For example, ICE raids often ensure market wage raises for ordinary Americans, so reducing the need for Walz and other Democrats to promote welfare payments.
“This vile anti-American language can only be construed as inciting insurrection and violence,” responded Trump’s senior aide, Steve Miller.
“It is absolutely sickening to compare ICE law enforcement agents to the Gestapo,” said a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the ICE agency. “Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong. ICE officers are now facing a 413% increase in assaults,” the statement added.
On Saturday, Walz told the mostly left-wing graduating class of the University of Minnesota Law School:
Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. 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. To be clear, there’s no way for us to know whether they were actually criminals or not because they refuse to give them a trial. We’re supposed to just take their word for it.
The incendiary language reflects the Democrats’ desire to motivate their core progressive base after the Democratic Party fumbled the 2024 election by nominating a weak and unpopular candidate, Kamala Harris.
Democrats are also hoping to slow, discredit, and block Trump’s campaign promise to deport perhaps ten million illegal migrants who were illegally invited into the country by President Joe Biden’s deputies. Democrats in Massachusetts and other states are also encouraging pro-migration groups to interfere and block ICE operations.
But the nation’s public wants the illegal migrants deported because they reduce ordinary Americans’ wages, drive up their housing costs, crowd out Americans from public services, and reduce pressure on companies to raise productivity, innovation, and prosperity.
Walz’s claims are deliberately misleading.
Migrants’ legal claims are heard by immigration judges in the Department of Justice, not by criminal courts.
Most migrants are deported after the department’s judges approve a deportation order. The orders are granted only after migrants are offered multiple legal opportunities to ask judges for permission to stay in the United States. The process usually takes years, although migrants who have been in the United States for two years can be deported via the fast-track expedited removal process.
The law requires that illegal migrants be deported for illegal migration, regardless of whether they commit additional crimes such as robbery or murder.
Walz describes migrants as “folks,” even though migrants are not Americans, and many are criminals. For example, Breitbart News reported in May 2023 on a street murder by one of Walz’s “folks,” whom ICE was not allowed to deport in Biden’s tenure:
Alexi Saborit-Viltres, a 42-year-old illegal alien from Cuba, was convicted of first-degree murder for beheading Thayer with a machete in July 2021 in Shakopee, Minnesota. Saborit-Viltres was supposed to be deported a decade ago, but ICE agents were unable to obtain travel documents for him.
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Saborit-Viltres told police that the two were on their way to court when she said she wanted to end their relationship, and he allegedly admitted to murdering her with a machete because she had “gone too far” in wanting to break up with him.
Thayer had worked at My Pillow, founded by Mike Lindell, and her friends said she changed her name to “America” after legally immigrating to the United States and becoming a naturalized American citizen.
In 2024, Walz and Kamala Harris were decisively beaten by President Donald Trump and his promise to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
Trump was democratically elected to carry out his lifesaving, pro-prosperity policies and continues to have strong support despite vehement opposition from the investor-backed Democratic Party. For example, a July 2024 poll commissioned by the Catholic Church showed that 43 percent of 1,342 self-identified Catholics said they want less migration, while just 23 percent favor more migration.
