Story highlights Rand Paul made the reference as part of remarks condemning the President's immigration plan

Paul cited World War II internment camps for the Japanese as an example of executive overreach

Rep. Mike Honda said "At best, he is confused. At worst, he is just wrong."

Sen. Rand Paul is receiving blowback from some of his Japanese-American colleagues after using World War II Japanese internment camps to describe what happens when a chief executive oversteps their power.

"Think of what happened in WWII, where the President issued an executive order," the Kentucky Republican said in a speech in his home state Friday slamming President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration. "He said to Japanese people, 'We're going to put you in a camp. We're going to take away all of your rights and liberties and we are going to intern you in a camp.'"

"I care that too much power gets in one place," Paul continued. "Why? Because there has been instances in our history where we allow power to gravitate to one person and that one person then makes decisions that really are egregious."

As news of the speech spread, Japanese lawmakers slammed Paul for his remarks.

"Rand Paul's comments comparing President Obama's executive order on Immigration with President Roosevelt's executive order that imprisoned thousands of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II could not be more misguided," Rep. Mike Honda said in a statement out Monday. "At best, he is confused. At worst, he is just wrong."

Honda himself lived in and out of Japanese internment camps for four years as a small child, as he referenced in his statement.

"As someone who as victim of executive order 9066, I can say without hesitation that (President Franklin Delano) Roosevelt was wrong," Honda said. "It was a misuse of power. President Obama's order is an appropriate use of executive order because Congress did not do its job."

On Sunday, his colleague and fellow California Democrat Rep. Mark Takano also slammed Paul for his "insulting" comparison.

"Senator Paul's comments likening President Obama's executive action that provides immigration relief to millions of people in this nation to the internment of Japanese Americans is insulting - not only to the millions who will benefit from President Obama's executive action, but to the thousands of Japanese who were interned during World War II, including my own mother and father," Takano wrote on his Facebook page

"At best, his comments are revisionist history, wrapped in a logical fallacy."

Doug Stafford, a Senior Adviser to Sen. Paul, told CNN that Paul "was not comparing the substance, he was discussing unchecked executive power."

"If you allow a President to take broad, unconstitutional power, you may not like what some of them do with it," Stafford said. "It is important for many reasons to follow the rule of law, and to live within the constitutional checks and balances in our system of government."

America's Bridge 21st Century PAC first posted video of Paul's comments on YouTube on Friday.