1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

After Japanese internment in World War II, we said never again. Yet here we are spending billions to set up detention camps all across this country. Congress must immediately defund ICE detention centers and end this mass incarceration of immigrants. Seventy percent of ICE detainees have no criminal history, and fewer than 3% have been accused of a violent crime. The majority are here awaiting asylum claims or going through the immigration process to get their green cards. They work hard and contribute to our communities and to the US economy, but now they're being treated like criminals. Reports of inadequate medical care, unsanitary conditions, and deaths from neglect or direct homicide in these centers are indefensible. Fort Bliss, the same military base used to intern Japanese immigrants during World War II, now operates the largest immigration detention facility in the country with capacity for 5,000 people. Whether the government calls people "enemy aliens" or "illegal aliens," the outcome is the same: dehumanization and mass detention without constitutional protections. The Japanese American Citizens League supports this comparison because it's grounded in truth and lived experience. Stop funding these detention centers. Never again means never again.