ICE: The new Gestapo?
Comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Gestapo is the new fad for leftists. The problem is, upon any real examination, the similarities between ICE and The Gestapo quickly vanish.
The Gestapo was the secret police arm of Nazi Germany, serving a totalitarian dictatorship that ruled through fear, torture, and mass murder. It existed to crush political dissent and carry out the racial ideology that culminated in the Holocaust. Its actions were extrajudicial, unaccountable, and designed to terrorize the population into submission.
ICE, whatever one thinks of its policies, operates within a constitutional system of government. It enforces immigration laws passed by Congress and signed by elected presidents. Agents work under legal authority and have governmental accountability.
People detained by ICE have access to legal processes, attorneys, and appeals. That framework alone makes the comparison to a secret police force of a genocidal regime historically absurd.
The analogy also cheapens the real horror of what the Gestapo represented. When everything becomes “Nazi,” the word loses meaning. It turns one of history’s darkest chapters into a political insult, rather than a serious reference to actual crimes against humanity. That does a disservice to victims of the Holocaust and to historical truth.
