You just knew this comparison was coming. I just didn’t know that the highest profile person to toss the proverbial hyperbolic grenade would be former First Lady Laura Bush.



Writing in an op-ed for the Washington Post, Mrs. Bush says:

In the six weeks between April 19 and May 31, the Department of Homeland Security has sent nearly 2,000 children to mass detention centers or foster care. More than 100 of these children are younger than 4 years old. The reason for these separations is a zero-tolerance policy for their parents, who are accused of illegally crossing our borders. I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart. Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned. Americans pride ourselves on being a moral nation, on being the nation that sends humanitarian relief to places devastated by natural disasters or famine or war. We pride ourselves on believing that people should be seen for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We pride ourselves on acceptance. If we are truly that country, then it is our obligation to reunite these detained children with their parents — and to stop separating parents and children in the first place. People on all sides agree that our immigration system isn’t working, but the injustice of zero tolerance is not the answer. I moved away from Washington almost a decade ago, but I know there are good people at all levels of government who can do better to fix this.

After the deeply offensive Holocaust comparison this weekend, I knew that an internment comparison was imminent. I have talked about the invoking of the Japanese-American internment before as a cudgel against the Trump administration before, and frankly, I am tired of having to fisk yet another false argument again. Despite my deep respect for Laura Bush, and the fact that I know that her heart is in the right place, this is absolutely the wrong argument to be making.

Here, in no particular order, are the reasons why the current situation at the border is nothing like the Japanese-American internment during World War II.

1) Two-thirds of the incarcerated Japanese were American citizens.

The National Archives records put the total of incarcerated Japanese at 117,000. 70,000 of those were American citizens. If the government had stopped with only arresting and incarcerating Issei (first-generation immigrant) men – as they did on the night of December 7, 1941 – then the argument that these mass detention centers are exactly the same would have a better analogy. My great-grandfather was taken away by the FBI on the evening of December 7th, and he spent most of the war separated from the rest of the family at a camp run by the Justice Department (not the War Relocation Authority, which had charge of all the other internment camps) in Montana. There were nine Justice Department camps, and they didn’t just hold Japanese citizens – there were also German and Italian citizens in those camps. And again, if the government had stopped there, with those considered “enemy aliens,” this would be a completely different passage in the history books.

But they didn’t. FDR signed Executive Order 9066, and American citizens were sent to internment camps in the middle of freaking nowhere.

Obviously, no one currently in the mass detention centers is an American citizen and entitled by birthright or naturalization to move freely on American soil. In WWII, two-thirds of the people sent to camps by the government WERE citizens, stripped of their rights for the “crime” of looking like the enemy.

2) Those trying to cross the border can choose to leave. The Japanese-Americans could not leave.

As was noted repeatedly by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, asking for asylum through the proper channels is perfectly legal.

This misreporting by Members, press & advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive. As I have said many times before, if you are seeking asylum for your family, there is no reason to break the law and illegally cross between ports of entry. — Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018

You are not breaking the law by seeking asylum at a port of entry. — Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018

For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between 'family' members, or if the adult has broken a law. — Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018



However, it should be noted that “voluntary deportation” – meaning that a person can turn right around and leave instead of trying to enter the United States – means that the family stays together. Obviously, the Japanese-Americans in internment camps had no such option to simply leave and go home. Their homes were now cut off from them by the creation of a military zone that forbade them from returning. People who wanted to leave camp had to have sponsors or connections on the outside, and they could not go back to the West Coast.

I get it – the people who are seeking asylum don’t want to return to their home countries. But crossing over illegally, getting caught by ICE, and then asking for asylum is not the ideal procedure. And if word does get out that families will be separated, will people stop making the dangerous journey?

Mass prosecutions happening in federal court. Fathers being separated from their children in detention. Not a new policy. But heartbreaking nonetheless. Thank you for giving them a voice @AlexWitt and @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/4YMsW7Eqoj — Mariana_Atencio (@marianaatencio) June 17, 2018



The United States is stopping those who are trying to enter the country illegally. Unless you are for open borders (which is a different argument altogether), then there has to be some mechanism to enforce the agreed-upon boundaries of any sovereign nation. The Japanese-American citizens were already in their home country, and the government rounded them up and took them away. The two situations are not comparable.

3) The conditions at these modern camps are far and away more humane than the Japanese-American internment camps of WWII.

When my grandfather and his family were first “relocated” out of Seattle and to the Puyallup Fairgrounds (nicknamed “Camp Harmony”), they were living in barns. Families were assigned horse stalls to live in. My grandmother’s family in Portland, Oregon, experienced much of the same at what is now the Portland Expo Center. When they were sent to Minidoka, in southern Idaho, conditions were unpleasant at best and hostile at worst.

After stays ranging from a few weeks to a few months, Japanese Americans were moved to ten concentration camps run by a newly created federal agency, the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Located in desolate desert or swamplands throughout the West and in Arkansas, these “relocation centers” were surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, and were still being completed when the first inmates began to arrive. Inmates lived in blocks of barracks with communal bathrooms, laundry facilities, and dining halls. Many cited extreme weather, dust storms, the lack of privacy, and inadequate food as among the many travails of living behind barbed wire. “And just seeing the living arrangement was, it was a real bummer. Thinking that, wow, this room has one light bulb,” remembered Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga of Manzanar. “And there were seven of us in one small room.…it was not very comfortable for newlyweds, especially, or any family, to live that close, not have the privacy. Which is the thing… I think liberty and privacy is what I miss the most.”

These centers that have been opened to press photography are nothing like what the Japanese-Americans lived with. The youth shelter that has most recently made the news is in a converted Walmart building in Brownsville, Texas.



I also find it deeply ironic that Mrs. Bush and others point out that “tent cities” are to be the next step in handling the influx – after all, “tent cities” are the current status of choice for city-sponsored homeless encampments in the greater Seattle area. So, tents are suitable for American citizens who are homeless, but not suitable for illegal aliens seeking asylum?

We are a nation of laws, not a nation of feelings. We cannot govern on feelings alone – that kind of hysteria actually brought on the Japanese-American internment, in all honesty! It is fine to call the current situation “immoral” and untenable, and also point out that those enforcing it are constrained by the rule of law. It is completely understandable to decry the separation of parents and children, and demand Congress pass a fix that will stand up to court scrutiny.

But for sanity’s sake, leave the Japanese-American internment out of your arguments. It’s not the same thing, and people of good conscience will demand that Congress create a fix for the situation that respects our laws and our borders without compromising security, but allows proved family units to stay together. After all, I would rather not see an executive order attempt to “fix” the issues at hand.