Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas seemed to allude to the Holocaust on national television Wednesday in his attack on a proposed ICE detention facility in the city.

Lucas told host Audie Cornish on CNN This Morning the proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding center was “un-American” due to its location near the railroad tracks.

The proposed facility, which would house between 5,000 and 10,000 detainees temporarily, is located in a former industrial warehouse used by Amazon.

The mayor noted Kansas City Democrats are “fundamentally opposed” to a proposed ICE detention facility in the region and noted that the city council has taken zoning actions intended to block its use.

Lucas described the site as “warehousing humans” and emphasized its proximity to railroad tracks which is language that appears intended to conjure images of Jews being sent to death camps during the Holocaust.

“The site is attractive because it’s next to railroads,” said the mayor. “I don’t like large encampments next to train tracks. That is terribly un-American. We’re fundamentally opposed to it.”

The CNN interview suggests Lucas is no longer content with procedural delays and is instead utilizing “every tool in the arsenal” to delegitimize the concept of immigration enforcement.

“Congressional Democrats are asking for something simple: don’t fund an agency that is restricting the rights of Americans, and in my view, the rights of entire American cities,” he told Cornish.

Those comments came after CNN aired a clip of Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who rejected calls to abolish ICE but acknowledged pressure by Democrats to curtail ICE operations.

Lucas also blamed ICE agents for the violence against them in Minneapolis.

“Every American city wants people to be safe, but we don’t want the federal government coming in to start riots or escalate conflict,” he said.

The Kansas City metropolitan area has increasingly become a flashpoint.

In neighboring Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, local governments have been issuing municipal identification cards to illegal immigrants, a move opponents say further entrenches sanctuary-style policies, as reported in the Heartlander.

At the same time, a Unified Government commissioner has proposed a ban on the construction or operation of ICE detention facilities in the county, further hamstringing federal enforcement efforts on immigration.

Taken together, the actions amount to what critics describe as a coordinated effort to block federal enforcement through local ordinances, zoning rules and administrative barriers.

Supporters of ICE argue that such resistance leaves federal agents with fewer safe and secure options to detain individuals awaiting deportation, forcing operations into less controlled environments and increasing risk to both officers and the public.

The result has been the shooting deaths of two people in Minneapolis, which have largely been the result of protesters who have impeded legitimate law-enforcement operations.

Lucas, however, defended the city’s approach as necessary to preserve public trust, citing past unrest and asserting that local police should not be “commandeered” to assist federal agents.

He framed ICE operations as disruptive to everyday life in American cities.

“There’s a running argument that none of this would be happening if Democratic cities did more to cooperate on immigration enforcement,” said CNN’s Cornish.

The Biden administration’s relaxed border enforcement allowed millions of unvetted individuals to enter the country.

Critics question if it was “right” for President Biden to allow rapists and killers into American communities where they are now protected by local obstructionism.