JANM Decries Creation of New US Concentration Camps and Surge in Mass Incarceration

Editors please note: JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus and at other locations at janm.org/OnTheGo. 

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) strongly denounces the immigration detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, the nearly $150 billion budget for national defense and deportations that is included in H.R. 1, and the Administration’s threats to revoke citizenship of naturalized US citizens who disagree with their policies. 

“JANM’s mission is rooted in one of the gravest civil liberties violations in US history: the mass forced removal and incarceration of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066 during World War II. The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration today echoes the same logic that led to their forced removal and incarceration. Similarly, threats to revoke naturalization and redefine legal status today are as fragile and dangerous as they were in 1942. Both echo the scapegoating and racism that led to that dark chapter in US history. It is inconceivable that the United States is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned eighty years ago. We know all too well the devastating consequences of such actions—families torn apart, livelihoods destroyed, and the trauma inflicted on a community for generations. This dangerous new direction echoes past injustices, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, Alien Land Laws, and World War II incarceration policies, emphasizing that the lessons of history must not be ignored,” said Ann Burroughs, JANM President and CEO.

###