Pro-Trump PAC Spokesman Cites Japanese-American Internment as Precedent for a Muslim Registry
"We've done it based on race, we've done it based on religion We did it during World War II with [the] Japanese," Carl Higbie tells Fox News.In an appearance on Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” a spokesman for the pro-Trump Great America PAC cited World War II Japanese-American internment camps as precedent for President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim registration system.
“We’ve done it based on race, we’ve done it based on religion, we’ve done it based on region,” Carl Higbie told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, who had asked about the constitutionality of such a plan. “We’ve done it with Iran back—back a while ago. We did it during World War II with [the] Japanese.”
Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated and incarcerated during World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Kelly asked if Higbie was suggesting re-implementing internment camps and said “that’s the kind of stuff that gets people scared.” He denied the suggestion, saying: “I’m just saying there is precedent for it.”
When Kelly replied, “You can’t be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is gonna do!” Higbie responded: “Look, the president needs to protect America first. And if that means having people that are not protected under out Constitution have some sort of registry so we can understand—until we can identify the true threat and where it’s coming from, I support it.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told Reuters the plan is being modeled after the highly controversial National Security Entry-Exit Registration System put in place after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly
Your support matters…Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
TD Column
Why does the LAist think Angelenos care what Nury Martinez has to say?
Reading about America a century ago offers an eerie sense of decades melting away and past and present blurring together.
Campaigns in New Jersey and Virginia that used immigration and other issues to promote racism lost. The next big test is the race for Jeff Sessions' vacant Senate seat.
Whether or not the new travel ban stands up in the courts, it is a piece of sordid bigotry.
Too often during this election season, a discourse of "bad manners" has paraded as insight while working to conceal the effects of power, politics, racial injustice and other forms of oppression.
In the interest of forcing our collective faces back to the instructive commentary offered by the deep, dark, truthful mirror, I present this cartoon as a battle cry, calling to action the hearts and minds of better men and women poised and ready to fight peaceably for a kinder and more tolerant future.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.