The Japanese American Citizens League is condemning the use of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to imprison up to 30,000 deported immigrants.
In a statement sent to AsAmNews, the JACL compared detaining undocumented immigrants at Guantanamo Bay to holding 125,000 Japanese Americans during WWII in concentration camps.
“That was also done in the name of “national security” and as it was discovered years later that the security threat was a falsified one, we similarly question the urgent threat to our national security,” JACL said in its statement.
On Sunday, a federal court stopped the detention of three Venezuelans at Guantanamo after their attorneys argued their legal rights and access to lawyers remains unclear.
The judge’s order is temporary pending a hearing.
14 civil liberty groups wrote homeland security requesting more information about those imprisoned at Guantanamo and their status, reported AA News Broadcast System.
“The Constitution, and federal and international law prohibit the government from using Guantánamo as a legal black hole,” they wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Civil rights attorney Elizabeth Fujiwara recently testified in support of a bill to ban the use of public lands for immigration prison camps.
During an interview on National Public Radio, civil rights attorney Elizabeth Fujiwara talked about what Japanese Americans experienced during WWII.
“I can’t even imagine what it was like to be totally humiliated every single day,” she said. “For four years to have military police have their rifles pointing at you and in fact in Manzanar there was resistance by the residents of the internment camp and the army shot 11 of them and they killed two. So this is not a Boy Scout camp. You do the wrong thing and you’re dead. And I think that’s the stress and the humiliation from that is unbelievable. How do you even survive?”
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
Happy Lunar New Year. We’re almost there. We are now 69% of our goal of meeting our $5,000 matching grant challenge with less than 6 full days to go. Every donation will be matched dollar for dollar through Sunday for up to $5,000. All donations will go toward fully funding an editor position at AsAmNews and to support our reporting. You can make your tax-deductible donations here via credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and Venmo. Stock donations and donations via DAFs are also welcomed.
Please also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.
