ADVERTISEMENT

Baltimore City Council Member Compares ICE Agents to Nazis

March 22, 2017

Baltimore City Council member Zeke Cohen rose to the defense of two illegal immigrants who allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl in a high school in Rockville, Maryland, and compared ICE agents to Nazis.

Tucker Carlson of Fox News challenged Cohen on Tuesday, asking Cohen why he sponsored a resolution to make Baltimore a sanctuary city.

Cohen tried to defend his position by saying that his great-grandmother came to the United States to escape the Holocaust. Cohen said that it was shameful for Carlson and the press to identify the rapists.

"It's pretty unbelievable that you would compare ICE, federal immigration authorities to the Nazis, which you just in effect did, and you did explicitly yesterday when their enforcing laws that would have prevented this heinous crime," Carlson said. "Would you say that to the parents of the girl who was raped? 'These are Nazis, these Americans who were enforcing immigration laws.' Why would you say some thing like that?"

"I extend my full sympathy to these parents, what they've been through is horrific and to trot their crime out publicly is really kind of shameful, Tucker," Cohen said. "And I think that the politics you are engaging in is this sort of Willie Horton-style race baiting, dog whistle, where we don't blame entire groups of people for the heinous acts of a few."

When Carlson challenged Cohen for comparing Nazis and ICE agents, Cohen doubled down.

"What I'm doing, Tucker, is comparing the plight of my great-grandmother who came here from Austria to escape Hitler's gas chambers to the same fate as my Honduran neighbors who've come here escaping violence from their country and just want to build a better life," Cohen said.

"That's not what you're saying," Carlson said. "In fact, let me read you a quote. This is from yesterday from the city paper in Baltimore. It said, 'Cohen likened the recent raids to what Nazi Germany did before the Holocaust.'"

"So, you're again, for the fifth time, you're accusing Americans, your fellow American citizens who are law enforcement officials of behaving like Nazis," Carlson said.

Later in the interview, Carlson reminded Cohen of Baltimore's own high crime rate.