Trump’s antisemitism envoy slams Walz for comparing ICE enforcement to Anne

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz faced sharp backlash after drawing a comparison between the fear experienced by children in his state and the story of Anne Frank. His comments followed the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ICU nurse, during an encounter with immigration agents last weekend.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Walz said some children in Minnesota were afraid to go outside because of what he described as “aggressive tactics” by federal immigration officers.
“We’ve got children hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading the story of Anne Frank,” Walz said, invoking the Jewish teenager who hid from Nazi persecution during World War II. “Somebody is going to write that children’s story about Minnesota—and there’s one person who can end this now,” he added, referring to former President Donald Trump.

The remarks drew immediate criticism. On Monday, Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism at the State Department, called Walz’s comparison deeply misguided.
“Ignorance like this cheapens the horror of the Holocaust,” Kaploun wrote on X. “Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally and obeyed Dutch law. She was sent to a death camp because of her race and religion. Her story has nothing to do with illegal immigration or lawlessness in Minnesota.”

The advocacy organization StopAntisemitism also condemned Walz’s statement, accusing him of exploiting Holocaust imagery for political gain.
“For those who invoke the Holocaust or Anne Frank to score political points while staying silent as Jew-hatred explodes worldwide: shame on you,” the group said Monday on social media. “Exploiting the murder of six million Jews while ignoring today’s antisemitism isn’t remembrance—it’s abuse of history.”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., later released its own statement, calling Walz’s analogy a “false equivalency.”
“Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Using her experience for political purposes is never acceptable,” the museum said. “Despite current tensions in Minneapolis, invoking the Holocaust in this way is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges globally.”