House Judiciary Committee member Hank Johnson (D-GA) has provoked a backlash after the Democrat congressman compared the deportation of violent illegal alien gang members to the Holocaust.
Johnson made allusions to the Holocaust while obliquely criticizing the deportation of MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the arrest of Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan.
He was speaking during a Wednesday committee markup meeting.
During the meeting, Johnson began paraphrasing German preacher Martin Niemöller’s confession.
Niemöller confessed to be someone who once supported the Nazi Party until it was too late to object to Adolf Hitler’s mounting atrocities.
“You know, first, they came for the Latinos outside of the Home Depots, trying to get work so that they could feed their families,” Johnson began.
“And I didn’t say anything about it because I’m not a Latino at the Home Depot.”
“Then they came for the Hispanic-looking folks [with] hats backward with tattoos.
“And they deported them to El Salvador.
“And I didn’t say anything about that because I don’t wear my [hat] backward, and I don’t have any tattoos, and I don’t look like a Latino.”
“Then they came for the Latinas at home, taking care of the children,” he continued.
“They scooped up the Latinas and the children, some of whom were American citizens, one of whom was receiving treatment for cancer.
“They swept them up, took them off, and deported them.
“And I didn’t say anything about it. Because I’m not a Latina.
“I’m not a little child who’s an American citizen.”
Johnson went on to make the same allusion to students protesting in support of Hamas terrorists on campus, who have been another target of the Trump administration.
“They sent jackbooted thugs wearing masks to pick them up, take them thousands of miles away, and put them in a private for-profit detention center where they languish at taxpayer expense,” Johnson said.
“And I didn’t say anything about it because I’m not a student on a foreign visa.”
He then noted how Judge Dugan had been arrested for allegedly aiding an illegal alien in avoiding federal immigration authorities.
Johnson said he did not speak up because he was not a “white female judge.”
“But then they came for me,” he said.
“And I looked around, and there was nobody left because I had remained silent.”
Johnson concluded by noting he paraphrased a poem from Germany, saying it “resonated back then as it does today.”
“It’s important that the people understand what is happening with our constitutional rights in this country,” he added.
“Everyone is entitled to due process, whether or not you are documented or undocumented, whether or you are a citizen or not.
“You’re entitled to due process.”
He said an amendment up for a vote in the markup sought to affirm that.
An amendment in the meeting record would have prohibited certain funds from being used to remove “an alien in violation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment.”
It was voted down.
In a post on X, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) mocked Johnson’s remarks.
“Wow, Hank Johnson just implied that all Latinos hang out at Home Depot,” Jordan said.
Johnson’s penchant for colorful remarks goes back more than a decade to 2010.
At the time, he issued a warning to the then-Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Robert Willard, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on military buildup plans.
Johnson told Willard that the island of Guam could potentially “tip over and capsize” due to overpopulation.
Amazingly, he wasn’t joking.
Democrats have recently shifted their comments on Abrego Garcia’s case more toward concerns about due process.
The shift comes after a Tennessee police video showing a run-in with Abrego Garcia allegedly smuggling illegal aliens was released.
