ICE director says its officers can't be compared to Nazis because they're 'simply enforcing orders'

The director of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has argued against accusations that the border enforcement officials have acted like Nazis by saying they're 'simply enforcing laws'.

In an interview with Fox News, acting ICE director Thomas Homan told the news anchor Tucker Carlson that he objected to ICE officials being compared to the Nazis.

In the organisation's defence, he said:

I think it's an insult to the brave men and women on border control and ICE, to call law enforcement officers Nazis. 

They're simply enforcing laws enacted by congress. 

Comparisons of the detention centres that illegal immigrant children are being held in on the Mexico border in Texas, and Auschwitz, have abounded on social media in recent days.

The defence that Mr Homan used, that they're simply 'enforcing laws', or 'following orders', is known as the Nuremberg defence, and was used by Nazi officers to attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility for the atrocities they carried out in the Second World War.

The irony of this - that he'd used a Nazi 'get out of jail free card', to argue that ICE weren't acting like Nazis - seemed totally lost on Homan.

Many on social media were quick to call him out.

Continuing to answer questions in the interview, Homan then used dehumanising language to describe illegal immigrants.

In a bid to defend ICE's actions, he said that he wished people would employ the same outrage against the 'illegal aliens' that commit crimes in the United States, as they are showing towards the Trump administration.

Let’s protect American citizens as much as you’re fighting for the illegal alien.

He then said that instead of blaming the government, people should blame children's parents.

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