The new rallying cry of the progressive left and many Democratic politicians is to compare Immigration and Customs (ICE) agents to Hitler’s Nazis and Gestapo because they are enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.
As this writer recently wrote in this space, it was a disgrace that over a dozen Democrats in the U.S. Senate introduced legislation to prohibit ICE agents from wearing masks.
In an equally disgusting display of ignorance, Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., signed a law banning law enforcement, including ICE, from wearing masks.
Apparently, exposing ICE agents and their families to possible danger is fair game for these Democrats.
As if such vicious actions weren't enough, a recent White House statement pointed out, "Democrats have spent years vilifying ICE as 'fascists,' 'the Gestapo' and 'slave patrols,' which has incited a 1,000 % surge in assaults on agents."
It went on to list over two dozen Democrats for their "reckless" anti-ICE comments, including words such as "Nazi Germany," "Gestapo" and "fascist police," accurately calling them a "battle cry for violence."
Obviously, they either do not know or care about the history and meaning of those terms.
The Gestapo was the official secret police force in Nazi Germany, established in 1933 by Hermann Göring, who later turned over command of it to Heinrich Himmler.
It lasted until the end of World War II in 1945.
It was known for its ruthless operations, which included surveillance, torture, arrests, and deportation of Jews to concentration and extermination camps, as noted below.
Under Adolf Hitler’s Fascist, Nazi-Gestapo regime the main target for extermination was Europe's Jews, with six million murdered in extermination and concentration camps during the genocide known as the Holocaust.
Some of the most notorious camps were Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka in Poland, as well as Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, and Dachau in Germany.
Jews were not the only victims.
Millions of non-Jewish persons were also persecuted and killed in the over 15,000 concentration and extermination camps in Nazi occupied countries.
These included political dissidents, men accused of being gay, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others who did not fit the Nazi "Master Race" philosophy and racial mold — inclusive of Blacks in Germany who were viewed as inferior.
Many were sterilized or murdered.
Given the sordid history of the Nazis and the Gestapo, it's really saddening that so many Democrats, especially those Blacks and ethnic minorities listed in the White House Statement, would trivialize the millions of deaths during the Holocaust by comparing ICE to Hitler's Gestapo.
All should be ashamed, but special condemnation goes to the following:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, D-Cal.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas.
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla.
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
Rep. Kwesi Mfume, D-N.Y.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
Rep. Rashda Tlaib, D-Mass.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, D-Mass.
Being racial minorities, under the Nazi-Gestapo Hitler regime, they would have been likely targets for extermination themselves.
Do they, and Govs. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., of California, Tim Walz, D-Minn., and JB Pritzker, D-Ill., truly believe ICE and the Trump administration are rounding up criminal illegal aliens — in cities such as Los Angeles — to put them in concentration camps to be starved, tortured, shot or gassed, and burned in ovens as the Nazis did to Jews and non-Aryans?
If not, why the silence from reasonable Democrats — particularly Jewish, Black, and Hispanics — on the inappropriateness of the comparison?
It's time for Democrats to cease making Nazi-Gestapo-ICE analogies and trivializing the horrors of the Holocaust.
Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations and training consulting firm in Florida. He is the author of "How Obama Failed Black America and How Trump Is Helping It." Read Clarence V. McKee's Reports — More Here.
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