It is entirely natural that debates over current policies, especially those that have a great impact on people’s lives, should elicit emotional arguments designed to connect with listeners. But in doing so, historical accuracy must be respected, or the argument is diminished. In her article “By any means necessary,” Mona Al-Rasheed decries cases where ICE has wrongfully detained legal citizens and placed them in detention centers with unjust conditions. This claim already carries with it incredible emotional weight for readers. However, Al-Rasheed then proceeds to unnecessarily diminish her argument by comparing the current situation to one of the darkest moments of history–The Holocaust–by asking the reader whether the system of ICE detention facilities “[s]ounds a lot like a concentration camp[.]”
Regardless of whether one is for or against the immigration policies of the Trump Administration, comparing the detention of individuals those who have not only violated immigration law, but often committed crimes in addition, to the Nazi’s program of forced labor and extermination camps that resulted in the systematic slaughter of six million Jews, is deeply offensive and has no place in the current debate.
Unfortunately, the author’s use of Holocaust imagery is not an isolated occurrence in the current WJ ICE debates. Before the March 13 walkout in protest of ICE’s actions, the Instagram account @wj_ice_walkout, spearheading the movement with over 750 followers, encouraged protestors to chant “Gestapo ICE has got to go.” Last I checked, ICE was not herding arrested citizens into cattle cars en route to forced labor or to death camps. Debating whether ICE’s tactics or policies are humane is completely understandable, but using the Holocaust as a political metaphor for current controversies is only exploiting its history and creating false equivalence between two completely separate events.
Following the death of Alex Pretti, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared the experience of those dealing with immigration enforcement to that of Anne Frank, the young Jewish author murdered in the Holocaust whose diary remains required reading for millions of students each year. “Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable,” the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum responded via X. “Despite tensions… exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges.” I agree and suggest that anyone comparing the actions of ICE officers, whether you perceive they act justly or not, to the terrors of Nazi Germany, visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, to educate themselves and put in perspective the severity and scale of what happened.
In a world that has seen six synagogues attacked with explosives, set on fire, or shot at in the last two weeks, a 34% increase in Antisemitic incidents globally since Feb. 28 (according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement), now more than ever is the time for sensitivity and awareness about the Holocaust.
-Joshua Zelermyer
President of the Jewish Student Union
