The Department of Homeland Security says Boston's Democrat mayor comparing ICE agents to neo-Nazis is "sickening."
The reaction Thursday came in response to a video posted by an account affiliated with the White House, during which Michelle Wu said, "I don't know of any police department that routinely wears masks.
"We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks. NSC-131 routinely wears masks," Wu added, in reference to a New England-based neo-Nazi group.
"Mayor Wu comparing ICE agents to neo-Nazis is SICKENING," Homeland Security wrote on X. "When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected gang members, murders, and rapists."
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"Attacks and demonization of our brave law enforcement is WRONG. ICE officers are now facing a 413% increase in assaults," Homeland Security added.
The Anti-Defamation League said members of NSC-131 "consider themselves soldiers at war with a hostile, Jewish-controlled system that is deliberately plotting the extinction of the White race."
Wu also recently said in an interview with WBUR that "People are terrified for their lives and for their neighbors" and "folks [are] getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained."
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ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, in a message to Wu on Wednesday, said "these are real people with real families you're hurting with your ridiculous rhetoric and inflammatory comments and it's time to remember that."
Leah Foley, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, also released a video message saying "federal agents in marked jackets and vests are masking their faces because people like Mayor Wu have created false narratives about their mission.
"Federal agents and their children are being threatened, doxxed and assaulted. That is why they must hide their faces," she added.
