MSNBC's Joe Scarborough (Screenshot)

After MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said Friday that immigration officers are treating illegal immigrant children “just like the Nazis” by “marching them to the showers” never to return, the White House responded by condemning the remarks.

The White House statement calls Scarborough’s claims “despicable,” an insult to Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis – and “categorically false”:

WH statement responding To Joe Scarborough's outrageous and despicable slander and smear of federal law enforcement officers. Statement is attributable to Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley: “It is appalling that Joe Scarborough would compare sworn federal law enforcement officers— who put their lives on the line every day to keep American people safe— to Nazis. This is the type of inflammatory and unacceptable rhetoric that puts a target on the backs of our great law enforcement. “It is also horribly insulting to the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust. “Not only is Scarborough’s rhetoric shameful, but his facts are categorically false. “When American citizens break the law, they are separated from their children and prosecuted. It’s unclear why Scarborough believes that illegal aliens are entitled to more rights than those afforded to American citizens. While Scarborough is quick to launch into his straight-to-camera outrage over the temporary separation of illegal alien families, he has never shown similar outrage for the permanent separation of American families forever torn apart from their children, who were killed by criminal aliens as a result of Democrats’ open borders policies. “If Joe Scarborough actually cared about keeping illegal alien families together, he would use his platform to support the Trump Administration’s efforts to close loopholes in federal immigration law.”

On his Friday morning MSNBC show, Scarborough accused immigration of officials of lying to immigrant parents “just like the Nazis” about the fate of their children, who are being “marched away to the showers” and never returned to their families:

“So, why is she (White House Press Sec. Sarah Sanders) lying this much? “I know children are being ripped from their mother’s arms, even while they’re being breast-fed. “I know children are being marched away to showers; I know they’re being marched away to showers. Being told they are — just like the Nazis — that said that they were taking people to the showers and then they never came back.”

Scarborough then sarcastically suggested that the immigration officers use the promise of “Slurpees,” instead of showers, to lure the children away from their parents: