Minnesota governor ripped for comparing ICE raids to the Holocaust

Tim Walz compares illegal immigrants to Holocaust victim Anne Frank, sparking angry backlash.

By World Israel News Staff

Minnesota’s Democratic governor is under fire after he compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdowns on illegal immigration in and around Minneapolis to the Holocaust.

On Sunday, Governor Tim Walz, who ran for vice president in the 2024 presidential election, held a press conference in response to the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs hospital nurse who was shot and killed while protesting against ICE operations in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Walz castigated the Trump administration’s response to the shooting, accusing the administration of misrepresenting the events leading up to the shooting and smearing the slain nurse.

“This family has gone through enough,” Walz said. “And to have the most powerful man in the world drag their dead son with absolutely no evidence and gaslight the entire country.”

In addition, Walz blasted the ICE crackdown on illegal immigration, comparing it to the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s, likening illegal immigrants to Anne Frank.

Frank, a German-born Jewish refugee forced to flee with her family to the Netherlands, was killed at a concentration camp in 1945, after evading Nazi forces for years while hiding in an attic in Amsterdam.

“We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside,” Walz said. “Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank.”

“Somebody is going to write that children’s story about Minnesota. And there is one person who can end this now.”

Walz’s comments quickly drew criticism on social media.

“Absolutely vile,” wrote an Instagram user under the handle “Jewsfightback.”

“She was hiding from extermination. Not immigration enforcement.”

This is not the first time Walz has invoked the legacy of the Holocaust to criticize the president’s efforts to deport illegal aliens. Last year, Walz dubbed ICE the “modern-day Gestapo.”