Virginia Mayor Positively Cites Japanese Internment as Reason to Deny Refugees

Democratic Roanoke Mayor David Bowers announced Wednesday that the city would not be spending any resources on resettling Syrian refugees, pointing to the internment of Japanese nationals during WWII as precedent.

Responding to last week’s Paris attacks– in which one of the terrorists posed as a refugee– Bowers said in a press release that the city would be reevaluating its stance towards Syrian refugees. “I am convinced that it is presently imprudent to assist in the relocation of Syrian refugees to our part of Virginia,” he said.

“I’m reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” he continued. “[A]nd it appears that the threat of harm to America from ISIS now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.”

The United States officially apologized for the internment of the Japanese in 1991, recognizing that they never actually posed any danger to national security. “The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was a great injustice, and it will never be repeated,” President George H. W. Bush said at the time.

[Images via Wikipedia]
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