Debates over federal immigration policy are necessary and important. My personal view is that while President Donald Trump has an electoral mandate and executive authority to deport illegal immigrants, the scale and tactics with which he is pursuing this policy do not serve the moral or economic national interest. In addition, administration attempts to control speech and target perceived political enemies while protecting corrupt political allies are plainly antithetical to the national interest.

Still, history and reality matter. In that regard, we should rebuke the immoral penchant of some political commentators and Democratic Party politicians to compare the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with the Gestapo secret police of Nazi Germany. Such comparisons are absurd for many reasons, but here are three.

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First, there’s the question of authority.

Unlike the Gestapo, ICE has no extrajudicial powers allowing it to detain, torture, kidnap, or execute at will. Nor does ICE have the right to enter private residences absent the consent of its lawful occupant, a warrant signed by a judge, or probable cause to believe entry is needed to prevent imminent criminality. In contrast, the Gestapo was able to detain anyone its officers deemed a threat to the Third Reich, and then dispose of those individuals as it pleased. The SS-controlled security organ did so liberally, relying on informants to effect a wholesale repression of German society and societies under Nazi occupation.

Yes, because breaches of federal immigration law tend to fall under civil rather than criminal codes, ICE agents have greater latitude to detain individuals than most law enforcement officers. Still, they cannot simply scoop someone up and make them disappear. The judicial process follows detention. Proving as much, the federal courts have taken action to restrain the Trump administration’s overly expansive sense of its own power to deport individuals as it pleases.

Second, there’s the mask concern.

Gestapo officers could act with impunity, but very rarely wore masks. They didn’t need to wear masks because their authority was de facto supreme. Aside from the threat of allied or resistance action, being known as a Gestapo officer wasn’t a risk because threatening the Gestapo carried immediate, catastrophic consequences. And while ICE agents must identify themselves as law enforcement, it should go without saying that the simple act of wearing a mask does not make one a Gestapo officer.

ICE agents are wearing masks for the lawful purpose of facilitating future undercover operations and in order to avoid retribution against themselves and their families. Yes, any U.S. law enforcement officer, whether federal, state, or local, should clearly identify themselves as such. Federal law enforcement guidelines also provide that officers should provide specific identification where doing so is safe and practicable. Where any law enforcement officer does not fulfill their obligations of identification, either via police-marked clothing or lawful requests for identification, they should face consequences.

Third, there’s the ICE-Gestapo variation of outcomes.

Persons previously detained by ICE aren’t later being discovered as having been tortured, disappeared, or executed by ICE. Yes, there have been incidents of excessive force and questionable tactics employed by ICE. Yes, the Trump administration has sometimes extended its deportation authority beyond breaking point. Yes, these are bad things that demand investigation and consequences. But the basic point here is that the overwhelming majority of individuals detained by ICE have avoided injury or ill-treatment. This stands in stark contrast to the record of the Gestapo.

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In the second book of his trilogy on the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, historian Richard Evans notes the express brutality that defined the Gestapo: “From the very beginning of the Third Reich, interrogation sessions by the police and the Gestapo often resulted in prisoners being returned to their prison cells beaten, bruised and badly injured to a degree that could not escape the attention of defending lawyers, relatives and friends.” And of course, these were the lucky ones.

Top line: ICE agents lawfully going about their work are not heirs to the Nazi secret police. Arguments to the contrary are both morally repugnant and historically incontinent.