Joy Behar might not understand Scandinavian politics, but that doesn’t come close to her delusion as offered on Thursday.
Speaking on ABC’s The View, Behar compared ICE immigration raids to Nazi raids against Jews:
Sorry, but if you truly believe that, then you most certainly have not read enough about the Nazis.
I’m not trying to make a case for or against ICE raids in this piece, but let me help Behar and those who might share her perspective. Here are the three operative differences between ICE and Nazi raids.
Intent: ICE raids are designed to relocate from U.S. soil those illegal immigrants who have been ordered deported by a court. The Nazis sought to remove Jews from their very existence.
The distinction in intent is extraordinary and comparatively grotesque. But the intent differential should not be detached from that which informs it. Where ICE are following court orders pursuant to ensuring that U.S. residency benefits accrue only to those entitled to them, the Nazis acted in pursuit of xenophobic purification. The Nazis wanted Jews gone because they believed that Jews polluted the essence of Germanic existence. The example of cleaning away excrement offers a terrible but truthful insight into Nazi thinking here. Among other things, in his pre-war autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to the Jews as “a ferment of decomposition.”
ICE are attempting to peacefully relocate humans to their nations of lawful residence. The Nazis saw themselves as cleaning the latrines.
Tactics: Whether their raids on Jewish homes were conducted by co-opted local police forces, Wehrmacht garrisons, or extermination forces like the SS Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis used ruthless violence and disregard for human rights to achieve their objectives. Indeed, such brutality was the manifestation of apex Nazism. This history is best told in the testimonies of Jews who survived the Holocaust: of families hiding in tiny spaces, of families removed from last remaining possessions, of families separated not for a week, but for most, forever.
But for those like Behar who haven’t read enough history, the ghetto liquidation scene in Schindler’s List offers a good example: terrified families being thrown onto the street and marched off to slavery-then-death, or death at first arrival.
In contrast, ICE agents aren’t even allowed to make forced entry against residences. Where ICE agents do detain illegal immigrants, they must do so with reasonable force. There is defining distinction between Nazi liquidation squads and federal agents following constitutional orders under an independent judiciary.
Outcome: Six million dead at the hands of the Nazis versus ICE returning thousands of people to their home nations. Millions more Jews were saved thanks only to the Allies.
Give me a break, Joy. ICE raids and the Nazis have nothing in common.
