Hawaii’s two U.S. senators joined a growing chorus of politicians and civil rights organizations Thursday in condemning comments made by a prominent supporter of President-elect Donald Trump that suggested World War II-era
Japanese internment camps could serve as a precedent for creating a federal registry for Muslim immigrants in the United States.
“The internment of Japanese Americans was a dark chapter in our history. We should remember it and never repeat the same injustice,” U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said in a statement. “Any suggestion that the classification of thousands of Japanese, Germans and Italians during World War II as ‘enemy aliens’ should be used as a precedent is immoral and must be rejected by all Americans.”
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, who immigrated from Japan at 7 years old with her mother, took to her Twitter account to criticize the comments.
“The internment of Japanese Americans more than 70 years ago set a precedent: that we should never let something like this happen again,” Hirono wrote.
In other tweets, she said:
“Are hate speech, racism and xenophobia the new normal in our country? No they are not.”
“We cannot let fear dictate our path forward. An inclusive and vibrant America is worth fighting for.”
Hirono and Schatz were reacting to comments made by former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie, who said there was legal precedent for creating an immigrant registry, which has been floated by a member of the Trump transition team.
“To be perfectly honest, it is legal. They say it will hold constitutional muster,” Higbie said during an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Wednesday. “I know the ACLU is going to challenge it, but I think it will pass. We have done it with Iran back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese.”
Higbie said that he wasn’t suggesting that the U.S. reinstate internment camps, but suggested that targeting certain ethnic groups or nationalities is OK if it’s in the interest of national security.
“What I am saying is we need to protect America first,” he said.
During his campaign Trump advocated for different policies relating to Muslims. He called for the U.S. to ban all Muslims from entering the country in response to the Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attacks and had said he would support a database that tracked Muslims in the U.S.
But late Thursday, Jason Miller, communications director for Trump’s transition team, released a statement saying that Trump never advocated for a system that tracks people based on their religion and that “to imply otherwise is completely false.”
The comments by Higbie have further inflamed concerns that Trump’s campaign and election have spurred racist and xenophobic rhetoric, causing an uptick in hate crimes and scaring immigrants and Muslim Americans. They’ve also touched a particular nerve in Hawaii, which has a significant Japanese-American population, some of whom have relatives who were interned in the World War II camps.
Following Higbie’s comments, state Sen. Jill Tokuda tweeted, “My great-grandfather sat in an internment camp while his son protected our country in the (Military Intelligence Service).”
More than 120,000 people of Japanese descent who were residing in Western states were imprisoned in internment camps during World War II. In Hawaii more than 2,000 people were put in such camps. Most of those imprisoned were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, according to historians.
In 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which apologized for the “grave injustice” done to citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry.
The internment of tens of thousands was “motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership,” according to the act.
