Dear Friends,

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been asked how Trump's recent executive order placing a temporary ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries relates to Roosevelt's executive order leading to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. My answer is that the better comparisons for the Trump Executive Order are the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1908 that restricted immigration of Japanese laborers, and the Immigration Act of 1924 halting immigration of Japanese and other Asians ineligible for U.S. citizenship—all of which contributed to the anti-Japanese sentiment that paved the way for Executive Order 9066. What is similar among these laws, treaties, and orders is that they were designed to keep a particular group out of the United States because of fears that they were dangerous. A fear of Chinese and Japanese as a “Yellow Peril” back then looks a lot like a fear of Muslims as potential terrorists today.

In the cases of these discriminatory immigration policies, we have the benefit of actual results and historical analysis to show that the sensationalized fears of bringing in a supposedly dangerous population were unfounded. When Chinese and Japanese immigrants were allowed into the United States, they worked hard and contributed to American society, just like other groups. Making immigration policy from a place of fear and "America first" hysteria doesn’t work. Let’s allow all Muslims a fair and equal opportunity to apply for immigration, and let us approve these applications based on the individual and not by race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or country of origin.

Join me on February 19th as I discuss this topic with my friend and colleague, Arsalan Bukhari, Director of the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. 

Sincerely, 

Tom Ikeda