Gov. Tim Walz rebuked by Trump administration for comparing immigration agents to Nazi Gestapo

Gov. Tim Walz drew the ire of the Trump administration this week after he likened federal immigration authorities to Hitler’s Gestapo during a commencement speech to Minnesota law school graduates.

Speaking at the University of Minnesota, where a student had recently been detained by ICE agents, Walz said President Donald Trump is trampling on rights, undermining the rule of law and defying due process. He told the U law school graduates they are “graduating into a genuine emergency” and are needed now more than ever.

“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They’re in unmarked vans wearing masks” and shipping people off to “foreign torture dungeons,” Walz said, referring to the deportations being carried out by federal immigration officers.

The DFL governor and former vice presidential nominee said there’s no way to determine whether the people being deported are actually criminals because the Trump administration has not given them a trial: “We’re supposed to just take their word for it.”

“Some would say, ‘boy, this is getting way too political for a commencement address,’” Walz said. “But I would argue I wouldn’t be honoring my oath if I didn’t address this head on.”

The Trump administration quickly fired back after clips of Walz’s commencement address circulated online.

Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said in a statement Tuesday that Walz’s comparison of immigration officers to the Gestapo, the secret police force of Nazi Germany, was “abhorrent, dehumanizing and ignorant.”

“It seems that Mr. Walz prefers violent criminal aliens are released into Minnesota’s communities,” Lyons said. “If the governor doesn’t like the laws, he’s free to advocate that Congress change them, but he should refrain from putting ICE officers in danger by likening them to one of the most appalling groups in history.”

Last year, Trump himself compared President Joe Biden’s administration to the Gestapo.

In 2022, Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen faced backlash for comparing mask mandates to measures in Nazi Germany. Walz called on Jensen to apologize at the time, saying the comparison was “hurtful and dangerous.”

Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, called on Walz to “walk back” the Gestapo language from his commencement address.

“This is the same point we made about the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s comments in the 2022 election comparing state Covid policies to Nazi Germany,” Hunegs said in a statement Tuesday.

Walz’s spokesman, Teddy Tschann, said in a statement Tuesday that “everyone deserves due process, and Minnesotans deserve to know who exactly these federal agents are taking from our college campuses, where they’re being sent, and why.”

Hunegs said the council shares the governor’s concern about due process. But he said Walz, who taught about the Holocaust when he was a high school teacher, should avoid making “deeply mistaken analogies.”

“[Walz] has spoken passionately about the need for Holocaust education at JCRC annual events. He signed into law legislation mandating Holocaust and genocide education,” Hunegs said. “He knows the importance of careful language when referring to the Holocaust and the perpetrators of the Holocaust.”