Politics & Government

Japanese American Incarceration “Shameful”: Biden

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
President Joe Biden speaks to members of the media as he arrives at the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024, after returning from Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Jiji Press

10:36 JST, February 20, 2024

Washington (Jiji Press)—The incarceration of more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent during World War II was “shameful,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement released on Monday, exactly 82 years after then U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the incarceration.

Noting that half of the incarcerated Japanese Americans were children, Biden said: “Families were separated. Communities were torn apart. People were stripped of their dignity.”

“Let it not happen again,” the president said.

Apparently bearing in mind Donald Trump, who is leading the Republican nomination race in the November presidential election and has called for tougher action against a surge of immigrants, Biden noted in the statement that he will “confront racism, xenophobia and hate in all its forms” and will strengthen and preserve the United States’ democracy.