In San Francisco, about a dozen people who'd been put in internment camps attended a press conference, where images of them as children lined the walls.

“The parallels are disturbing, and so resonant with our experience,” said Satsuki Ina, describing current anti-immigrant sentiment.

Ina — who was born in the Tule Lake Segregation Center in Modoc County in 1944 — is an organizer for the advocacy organization Tsuru for Solidarity.

“Once you demonize a collective group of people, then it becomes easier to dehumanize them and do inhumane things to them,” she said.

“This is exactly the same kind of thing that’s happening about the migrants that are seeking asylum, safety and refuge in our country.”

The press conference built on the momentum of Tsuru for Solidarity protests on June 22 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Tsuru means "crane," and the members of the grassroots group folded thousands of origami tsuru as a symbol of the Japanese Americans interned in the 1940s. They brought their collection of tsuru to their protest at Fort Sill last week.