Pro-Trump influencer compares ICE to Nazi Germany’s police

Influencer and podcaster Joe Rogan (right) is one of United States President Donald Trump’s most influential supporters. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters/Disclosure/Spotify The controversy surrounding the shooting death of a Minneapolis resident by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent continues to resonate in the United States and generate outrage. This time, conservative influencer Joe Rogan compared the methods of ICE, the Trump administration’s immigration police, to those of Adolf Hitler’s police in Nazi Germany. Rogan is one of President Donald Trump’s most popular supporters and played an important role in helping elect the Republican to the White House in 2024. He is the host of the most listened to podcast in the USA and is famous among groups of young men with conservative values. Violence blamed on ICE has fueled outrage domestically in the United States, with demonstrations against federal ICE agents in Minneapolis, where Good died, and other American cities. Although he stated that he understands that the North American president is putting into practice the plan to persecute immigrants for which he was elected, Joe Rogan contested the methods adopted, comparing them to those of Nazi Germany. New images taken by an ICE agent show the moment a woman is killed in the US “We don’t want armed soldiers roaming the streets, randomly arresting people, many of whom end up being US citizens who simply don’t have their documents with them at the moment. Are we really going to turn into the Gestapo? ‘Show your documents’. Is that really what’s happening now?”, said the influencer. Joe Rogan is one of the most popular podcast hosts in the United States – with more than 14 million subscribers on Spotify and 17 million on YouTube. He is especially listened to by young men and an audience that identifies with Donald Trump. By refusing to have Kamala Harris on his podcast during the last election campaign, he contributed to Trump’s election to the White House. This is not the first time that Trump’s immigration policy has generated strong rejection. Since last year, several influential hosts of comedy podcasts and talk shows aimed at men, who previously supported the president, have withdrawn their support. This distancing from Joe Rogan – often described as “the most famous undecided voter in the US” – is not a good sign for Donald Trump, who continues to defend ICE in the case of Renée Good’s death. At least four people have died in ICE custody since the beginning of 2026, and at least 30 in 2025, the year with the most deaths since the creation of this police force in 2003, according to official data. On Thursday (15) Mexico officially requested explanations regarding the death of one of its citizens who was detained by ICE in the state of Georgia. Expanded area of ​​activity and few restrictions People protest against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after a US immigration agent shot and killed a 37-year-old woman inside her car in Minneapolis, New York, USA REUTERS/Angelina Katsanis TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY The budget allocated to implementing the government’s immigration policy was multiplied tenfold. “Since July, the Department of Homeland Security has had a budget of US$170 billion. Thus, for several months, millions and millions of dollars have been spent on equipment, weapons, protective vests, clothing and uniforms, as well as lethal or non-lethal material, such as tasers and gas ammunition”, explains researcher Charlotte Recoquillon, from the French Institute of Geopolitics, where she specializes in police violence. Furthermore, ICE received “full authorization” in July to take whatever measures it deems necessary “to protect itself.” This guideline expanded, in practice, the agents’ margin of action during operations and approaches. “It was known what its missions were: to absolutely combat irregular immigration. But there were no legal limits clearly defined in the decrees, to try to minimally frame ICE’s actions,” Olivier Piton, a lawyer specializing in public law in Washington and an essayist, told Radio Canada. The Trump administration also set detention goals. The Homeland Security advisor pressured immigration agencies to arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants per day, with the aim of increasing the number of deportations. The death of a US citizen in Minneapolis indicates that the violence of the methods used by federal immigration agents has reached a new level, even though the agency’s use of firearms is not unprecedented. According to the North American vehicle The Trace, which monitors incidents involving firearms linked to the immigration repression promoted by Donald Trump, immigration agents have fired shots in at least 16 episodes since the beginning of 2025. These cases involve both ICE agents, responsible for enforcing laws within United States territory, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency in charge of border control. In at least 15 other incidents, agents even pointed firearms at people. These numbers are probably underestimated, the vehicle itself acknowledges, noting that “shootings involving immigration agents are not always publicly disclosed”. The NGO Human Rights Watch denounces a “violent militarization of immigration control operations in the United States under the current government”. In a statement, the organization’s United States program director, Tanya Greene, called on “the Trump administration to redirect its energy and taxpayer resources to immigration operations conducted peacefully and safely, in accordance with the law and with respect for people’s rights, including the fundamental right to life.” In addition to people killed by gunfire, 32 individuals lost their lives in ICE detention centers in 2025, according to The Guardian newspaper. It was the deadliest year for the agency in more than two decades. Trump threatens to resort to an exception law In a message published on the Truth Social network, Donald Trump reacted on Thursday by threatening to resort to the Insurrection Act if “corrupt politicians in Minnesota do not respect the law and do not work to prevent professional agitators and insurgents from attacking” ICE agents. The President of the United States has threatened several times in recent months to resort to this legislation, which would allow the establishment of a form of state of emergency, authorizing the use of the Armed Forces for the purpose of maintaining public order. The Insurrection Act was last activated in 1992, by then President George Bush Sr., at the request of the Republican governor of California, in the face of unprecedented disturbances in Los Angeles following the acquittal of the police officers who had beaten Rodney King, a black driver, the previous year. On the day of his return to the White House, Donald Trump placed the fight against irregular immigration as one of the main axes of his second term. Through a series of decrees, he launched a real hunt for illegal immigrants, in the context of a broad expulsion campaign, relying heavily on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It is a federal agency linked to the Department of Homeland Security, an immigration police created in 2003, whose powers have been significantly expanded since the beginning of the new Trump administration. Right at the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump drastically changed the role of this force. From an agency responsible for monitoring irregular immigration, but also for investigating networks of child sexual exploitation, trafficking in people or antiquities, ICE now, by decree, has as a priority the application of immigration laws and “other rules related to the illegal entry and stay of foreigners” in the United States.

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