Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) compared federal law enforcement agents carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown to a World War II-era Nazi police force during a commencement speech over the weekend.
“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last fall, 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.”
Walz was referring to the Trump administration’s fast-tracked deportations of migrants and pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses, as carried out primarily by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
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.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, responded with a statement on the social platform X.
“It is absolutely sickening to compare ICE law enforcement agents to the Gestapo,” it read. “Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong. ICE officers are now facing a 413% increase in assaults.”
Trump himself faced backlash last year after he told Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that then-President Biden was running a “Gestapo administration.”
“These people are running a Gestapo administration,” Trump told the crowd, according to audio first obtained by The New York Times. “It’s the only way they’re going to win, in their opinion, and it’s actually killing them.”
Walz, the former running mate of then-Vice President Kamala Harris, has been a frequent critic of the Trump administration.
During the rest of his nearly 20-minute commencement address, he stressed his hope for future generations, including those receiving their degrees that day.
“Right now, more than any other time in my lifetime, we need you to live up to the oath that you’re about to make. Because, I have to be honest with you: You are graduating into a genuine emergency,” he said.
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