Lets remain true to American values, not be intimidated by terrorists. - That hands them a victory and brings shame on the US, as did interment of the Japaneses Americas in WII or the refusal to let about 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler on the ship, the USS St Louis, enter NYC. - They were sent back to Europe, many to die in gas chambers. US has enough shame in its history; we don't need more. Stand tall with Lady Liberty as Bernie Sanders and Obama have. Not like unprincipled Republicans pandering for votes. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The current vetting process is very thorough and takes at least 18 months - often more than two years.
It wasn't just Japanese americans interned during ww2, also Italian americans and German americans. They were classified as "enemy aliens".
One problem is UN says that 72% of the refugees going to Europe are males. Children account for about 15%. The men are leaving their wives and children behind. While a large fraction of the Syrian refugees; 47%, are not even from Syria. These numbers do not add up to picture of the huddled Syrian women and children, the President has been describing, that the media reinforces. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Good piece by George Takei: ================ Earlier today, the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, Mr. David A. Bowers, in the attached letter, joined several state governors in ordering that Syrian refugees not receive any government assistance, or be relocated to their jurisdiction. Apart from the lack of legal authority to do so (under the Refugee Act of 1980, only the President has authority to accept or deny refugees), his resort to fear-based tactics, and his galling lack of compassion for people fleeing these same terrorists, Mayor Bowers made the following startling statement: “I’m reminded that Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.” Mayor Bowers, there are a few key points of history you seem to have missed: 1) The internment (not a "sequester") was not of Japanese "foreign nationals," but of Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. I was one of them, and my family and I spent 4 years in prison camps because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. It is my life’s mission to never let such a thing happen again in America. 2) There never was any proven incident of espionage or sabotage from the suspected “enemies” then, just as there has been no act of terrorism from any of the 1,854 Syrian refugees the U.S. already has accepted. We were judged based on who we looked like, and that is about as un-American as it gets. 3) If you are attempting to compare the actual threat of harm from the 120,000 of us who were interned then to the Syrian situation now, the simple answer is this: There was no threat. We loved America. We were decent, honest, hard-working folks. Tens of thousands of lives were ruined, over nothing. Mayor Bowers, one of the reasons I am telling our story on Broadway eight times a week in Allegiance is because of people like you. You who hold a position of authority and power, but you demonstrably have failed to learn the most basic of American civics or history lessons. So Mayor Bowers, I am officially inviting you to come see our show, as my personal guest. Perhaps you, too, will come away with more compassion and understanding. ====================
It is common knowledge and It's even on wikepedia mostly, german and italian americans were ok if they would move out of the exclusion zones. but, many hundreds were held in camps, and some were even housed in county jails. from wikipedia from: http://www.ejournalncrp.org/wwii-secret-italian-americans-internment-as-alien-enemies/
Japanese versus Italian and German immigrants to Latin America were treated similarly (the US government requested that they be shipped off to American internment camps). Japanese versus Italian and German citizens (and immigrants) to America were treated dissimilarly, no matter if you account it as a fraction of the population, as a total number in the camps, or the exclusion zones that applied to them. Despite there being far more of those born in or parented by those born in either of the European countries, their internment totals didn't come close to the 110,000 - 120,000 first, second and third generation Japanese-Americans interned. http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/enemy-aliens-overview.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans (Roughly 1/1000 of German parentage or birth interned) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Italian_Americans ( Roughly 1/370 ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans ( Roughly 2/5 or 23/27 if you exclude the Hawaiian islands)
A mission good for you and for America - We have such short memories and schools ignore shameful incidents in US history while teaching Americans invented every useful thing, from the airplane to toilet paper. Thanks for trying to dispel American's deep well of ignorance. One point you could have made was more than a dozen Japanese American parents in the interment camps had sons wearing US army uniforms and often serving in the Pacific island's front lines. They could and did provide immediate translations of open communications and saved countless other American solider's lives. Some day some grateful Syrian, sitting in an American restaruant, might over hear some terriorist plans being quitely discussed in the next booth and do the same, if they had been allowed in.
One of the problem is the Obama Administration has a history of ignoring the law. He does not enforce the current laws connected to immigration. Obama allows foreigners to break the laws and then get rewarded with government benefits. If he is willing to ignore the law and even lie, many are concerned about who will enter the country under a lawless president. As an analogy, say you put me in charge of your house party. You give me a list of people who are invited and the rules of the who goes where. I will act like Obama and ignore your lists and rules, and allow whoever I want, to enter the party and eat your food and drink your drink. I might even allow stranger who will owe me one. When the next party appears, will you want me to be in charge or will you hesitate in terms of putting me in charge? In terms of the refugees, Syrian Christians account for 10% of the population of Syria and are being systematically targeted by the Muslim extremist for extermination, yet 2% of the refugee are Christian. Why is the president acting so racist, while ignoring a main reason we offer asylum? The Syrian Christians are targets with the most need of asylum yet only 2% are allowed. A racist and lawless president should not be in charge of this migration of people. This is why others want more say and more assurance because you can;t trust a lawless president to obey the rules.
Only an ignorant fool would say that because the current immigration laws make it legal for Obama to set priorities flexibly and being in the US illegally is not a crime in Federal law and Congress has signaled that they want Obama to pick and choose who to deport because they gave him that power to decide priorities and did not fund the government enough to deport everyone who qualifies. These are statements of fact. //Edit -- for example, Title 8 of U.S. Code, § 1227 lists a long list of aliens which are deportable not "must be deported" and gives the power to the Attorney General to order their deportation. But nothing requires the Attorney General to so order -- it's a matter of discretion.
Except none of that is true. As usual you have been getting your information from Republican politicians and entertainers rather than from serious and credible sources. If Republicans really believed Obama was "lawless" they control both houses of Congress and could and by law should impeach him. But the problem is, contrary to your assertion and those of the Republican entertainers you so enjoy, Obama has not broken any laws. That is why Congress has not impeached him. I fully realize facts shake up your world. Except, that isn't even remotely analogous to what has happened. Well it would be funny were it not for the fact that people like you who are so deluded and divorced from fact and reason are so commonplace in Republican circles. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...-trump-says-if-youre-syria-and-christianyou-/ Additionally, Obama isn't in charge of the Syrian migration. It's one of those many little facts which keep eluding you. Christians are supporters of the Assad government, the government which has gassed its citizens with sarin gas and dropped barrel bombs on innocent women and children. Last time I checked my New Testament, those acts are not very Christian. And last time I checked race and racism have nothing at all to do with religion. And where is you evidence Christian refugees are "most in need"? Syrian Christians are a minority. The vast majority of Syrians are Muslims. Unfortunately for you and your fellow Republicans facts and reason do matter. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yesterday, the much smaller in population Canada, announced they would accept 25,000 refugees (especially Syrians). US no longer deserves to have statue of liberty in NY harbor. As "Give me your tired and hungry huddled masses yearning to breath free air ..." (Or words to that effect) applies to Canada, not the US.
"UNHCR’s data show that 50.5 percent of refugees are women. Females age 18 to 59 make up 23.9 percent of the refugees, while males in that age group make up 21.8 percent. Even younger males — age 12 to 17 — represent 6.5 percent of refugees, while females that age are 6.1 percent. The majority of refugees — 51.1 percent — are under age 17, including 38.5 percent who are younger than 12 years old. These numbers were as of Sept. 6. We have seen a different set of UNHCR numbers cited on a few conservative websites — figures for refugees and migrants who have tried to enter Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. There have been more than 400,000 such “sea arrivals” in 2015, and 51 percent are Syrian. The rest have come mainly from nine other countries. Most of these refugees and migrants have been men — 72 percent — but these are not figures on Syrian refugees or even solely the 200,000-some Syrians who have been willing to take some type of boat to reach Europe by sea."===http://www.factcheck.org/2015/09/stretching-facts-on-syrian-refugees/
