Virginia mayor holds up WWII Japanese interment camps as rationale to shut out Syrian refugees

Photograph of Members of the Mochida Family Awaiting Evacuation, 1942
(Image credit: Dorothea Lange, U.S. National Archives)

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has declined Republican requests to try and keep Syrian refugees from resettling in Virginia, so on Wednesday, Roanoke Mayor David Bowers took action. Bowers, also a Democrat, said in a statement that in light of the bombing of a Russian passenger plane, the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the "murderous threats to our nation's capital" — all claimed by the Islamic State — he'd asked local authorities to "suspend and delay any further Syrian refugee assistance until these serious hostilities and atrocities end, or at the very least until regarded as under control by U.S. authorities."

"Roanoke is a welcoming city," he said, but "at least for a while into the future, it seems to me to be better safe than sorry." To further explain why Roanoke should bar refugees from Syria, Bowers cited yet another Democrat: "I'm reminded that President 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." That got people's attention.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.