George Takei Slams Immigration Policy, Compares It to Japanese Internment Camps
Instagram
Celebrity

The 81-year-old actor writes in an open letter, 'At least during the internment of Japanese-Americans, I and other children were not stripped from our parents.'

AceShowbiz - George Takei has compared U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial immigration policy to separate parents from their children when they illegally cross into the U.S. to Japanese internment camps.

The Star Trek actor was forced to leave his Los Angeles home with his relatives and live in a U.S. internment camp in Arkansas following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941, and he has spoken out extensively about the inhumane confinement.

Now Takei has turned his attention to the over 2,000 undocumented migrant children who have been separated from their parents after crossing the American border since May, blasting President Trump over his policy in an open letter.

"Imagine this scene: Tens of thousands of people, mostly families with children, are labeled by the government as a threat to our nation, used as political tools by opportunistic politicians, and caught in a vast gray zone where their civil and human rights are erased by the presumption of universal guilt," he writes on ForeignPolicy.com. "That is America today, at our southern border, which asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants alike are seeking to cross. But it is also America in late 1941, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, when overnight my community, my family, and I became the enemy because we happened to look like those who had dropped the bombs. And yet, in one core, horrifying way this is worse. At least during the internment of Japanese-Americans, I and other children were not stripped from our parents...".

Takei is urging lawmakers and citizens to take a stand against the much-maligned policy.

"Although the first camps for border crossers have been built, and are now filling up with innocent children, we have a chance to ensure history does not repeat itself in full, to demonstrate that we have learned from our past and to stand firmly against our worse natures," he adds. "The internment happened because of fear and hatred, but also because of a failure of political leadership. In 1941, there were few politicians who dared stand up to the internment order. I am hopeful that today there will, should be, must be, far more people who speak up, both among our leaders and the public, and that the future writes the history of our resistance - not, yet again, of our compliance".

Follow AceShowbiz.com @ Google News

You can share this post!

You might also like
Related Posts