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Tsuru for Solidarity Condemns Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) Comparison of Ongoing Impeachment Hearings to the WWII Internment of Japanese families

As Japanese American survivors of the WWII incarceration and their descendants, we condemn Senator John Kennedy's (R-Louisiana) offensive and inaccurate comparison of the ongoing impeachment hearings to what the government did to our families in WWII.

SAN FRANCISCO

As Japanese American survivors of the WWII incarceration and their descendants, we condemn Senator John Kennedy's (R-Louisiana) offensive and inaccurate comparison of the ongoing impeachment hearings to what the government did to our families in WWII.

Senator John Kennedy, (R-LA) speaking to reporters, "It looks to me like, so far, [House Intelligence Committee Chair, Adam Schiff] and the speaker are going to give about as much due process [to the president] as the federal government gave our Japanese American friends during World War II", Kennedy said, according to Huff Post politics reporter Igor Bobic, who tweeted about the exchange." (https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/119513136970713948160; https://apple.news/Ao8YJRjnRgOvrdpyommcag)

Even if President Trump is removed from office through this process - in which he is being represented by attorneys of his choice and has an opportunity to defend himself - President Trump and his family are not going to be rounded up en masse, forced to sell their property, and held indefinitely in concentration camps as we were during WWII.

Senator Kennedy's spurious comparison is especially offensive given his support for the Trump administration's family separation policies and indefinite detention of migrant families. In a 2018 interview, Senator Kennedy, acknowledged that such indefinite detention could be unlawful, but stated, "Let the kids stay in the detention center (with their parents) until somebody challenged it." (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton.rouge/news/politics/article_acd9917c-...- f30a5861756.html)

We stand in solidarity with the immigrant communities being targeted today, and with the families and children whom Senator Kennedy wants to keep locked in cages. And we condemn Senator Kennedy's cynical, hypocritical appropriation of our history!

Join Tsuru for Solidarity National Pilgrimage to Close the Camps, June 5-7, 2020 in Washington DC.