Tim Walz calls ICE 'Trump's modern-day Gestapo'

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is "Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo," Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said at a law school commencement ceremony this past weekend.

"Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets," Walz said during his speech at the University of Minnesota's law school commencement ceremony Saturday, according to a video posted by RealClearPolitics.

"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 immigration agents arresting and detaining immigrants for deportation whose actions and words have been considered by. the Trump administration to be a threat to the United States' national security.

The term "Gestapo" refers to the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe whose responsibilities included suppressing dissent and arresting those deemed threats to the Nazi regime. 

Walz continued in his speech: "To be clear, there’s no way for us to know whether [the immigrants] were actually criminals or not, because they refused to give them a trial. We’re supposed to just take their word for it.

Whether the immigrants, in the U.S. on a visa, are constitutionally entitled a hearing before being deported is now being decided in the courts.

Walz also said: "And when duly elected members of Congress tried to exercise their constitutional right of oversight at an ICE facility, they get shoved around and threatened with arrest. When courts told them repeatedly to knock it off, they brazenly defy them."

Regarding the Congress members, Walz was referring to New Jersey Democratic Reps. LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez, Jr., who participated in a protest at an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, earlier this month.

Authorities have claimed the event was not just a peaceful protest, as the three members of Congress allegedly stormed the facility, an ICE agent was allegedly assaulted, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested and charged with trespassing.

Justice Department sources told the New Jersey Globe on Friday that it plans to file charges against McIver over the protest.

"This is what the crumbling of [the] 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 also said in his speech.