‘You Need To Apologize’: Byron Donalds Grills Tim Walz As He Shrugs Off Calling ICE Agents ‘Modern-Day Gestapo’

Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds pushed Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday to revoke his statement that compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Gestapo.

Walz labeled ICE agents as President Donald Trump’s “modern-day Gestapo” during a May 18 commencement speech as the administration cracks down on mass deportations and the arrest of illegal immigrant criminals. During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Donalds directly told Walz that his statement is “disgusting” and he owes the agency an apology.

“Do you realize how disgusting a phrase that is considering the history of Nazi Germany?” Donalds asked. “Would you like to recant that statement?”

“What I said, congressman, and I have a long history of supporting law enforcement, is that President Trump was using them as his modern-day Gestapo, not identifying who you are, coming up in unmarked vans, taking people away,” Walz said. (RELATED: Sanctuary Governors Dare Tom Homan To Arrest Them — But Tim Walz Doesn’t Seem Too Keen About Idea)

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Walz admitted that ICE agents’ responsibility is to arrest and deport individuals who have entered and lived in the U.S. illegally, while Donalds argued that former President Joe Biden’s administration “abused every process” relating to illegal immigration.

“The president is doing his job. So it is sick to refer to Americans who are ICE agents as Gestapo. Governor, you’re wrong. You need to apologize to these agents. They’re doing their jobs. They are Americans, they are serving this country with honor and decency and respect,” Donalds continued. “Do not diminish their work simply because you tried to make a cheap point that you could tweet.”

During the commencement speech, Walz accused ICE agents of arriving to individuals’ homes in “unmarked vans” and shipping them off to so-called “foreign torture dungeons,” where those arrested then disappear. He accused the Trump administration of not giving arrested illegal immigrants a trial.

“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz said at the time. “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. To be clear, there’s no way for us to know whether they were actually criminals or not, because they refused to give them a trial.”

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin called Walz’s remark “sickening” in a May 19 statement, stating his type of “rhetoric” had led to ICE agents facing a 43% increase in assaults.

Trump’s immigration policies have been widely popular with the American public, including among legal immigrant citizens, who have overwhelmingly shown strong support for the deportation of illegal immigrants, CNN’s Harry Enten said on Wednesday. Border crossings, migrant encounters and “gotaways” were all down by 93% or more through the first 100 days of the Trump administration, according to a White House fact sheet.

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