Roanoke Mayor Uses Japanese Internment Camps To Argue For Rejecting Syrian Refugees
[su_gootxttop]
Very few Americans believe rounding up and detaining people of Japanese descent was a good idea during World War II. But, Roanoke, VA Mayor David Bowers likes that as a model for what we should do with Syrian refugees.
Bowers, like a lot of state and local government officials, is trying to prevent Syrian refugees from being resettled in his area. Unlike most state and local government officials, however, he justifies his actions by saying we should be at least as harsh toward Syrians because of ISIS as FDR was to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor:
I’m reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis(sic) now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.
[su_gootxtbelow]
[su_facebook]
