Speech #1100017359

Romanians or other European Americans living in America were taken from their homes and placed in internment camps during World War II. We must learn from this history and explore why we turned on our fellow Americans and failed to protect their basic freedoms. A second commission created by this bill will review the treatment by the U.S. government of Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution and genocide. We must review the facts here as well and determine how restrictive immigration policies failed to provide adequate safe harbor to Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of Nazi Germany. It is a horrible truth that the United States turned away thousands of refugees. delivering many refugees to their deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime. As I mentioned earlier. there has been a measure of justice for Japanese Americans who were denied their 11berty and property. It is now time for the U.S. government to complete the accounting of this period in our nations history. It is time to create independent. factfinding commissions to conduct a full and through review of the treatment of all European Americans. European Latin Americans. and Jewish refugees during World War II. Up to this point. there has been no justice for the thousands of German Americans. Italian Americans. and other European Americans who were branded "enemy aliens" and then taken from their homes. subjected to curfews. limited in their travel. deprived of their personal property. and. in the worst cases. placed in internment camps. There has been no justice for Latin Americans of European descent who were shipped to the United States and sometimes repatriated or deported to hostile. wartorn European Axis powers. often in exchange for Americans being held in those countries. Finally. there has been no justice for the thousands of Jews. like those aboard the German vessel the St. Louis. who sought refuge from hostile Nazi treatment but were callously turned away at Americas shores. The injustices to European Americans. European Latin Americans. and Jewish refugees occurred more than fifty years ago. Americans can learn from these tragedies now. while the people who survived these injustices are still with us. and are still here to teach us. We cannot put this off any longer.