WATCH: Trump ally says Japanese internment camps 'precedent' for Muslim registry
An ally of President-elect Donald Trump invoked the Japanese internment camps as a “precedent” to justify proposals about creating a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
"We've done it with Iran back awhile ago. We did it during World War II with the Japanese," Carl Higbie, a spokesman for a pro-Trump political action committee, said in an interview with Fox News.
The comments sparked outrage.
The US government confined Japanese Americans, even those born in the United States, to special camps during World War II. The act is viewed by historians as illegal and discriminatory.
President Ronald Reagan signed a law in 1988 granting reparation to the victims of the government’s conduct during the war between 1942 and 1946. Two years later, President George H. W. Bush formally apologised for the internment of Japanese Americans.
Interviewer Megyn Kelly was quick to rebuke Higbie.
"You can’t be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is going to do," she said.
Muslim Americans and civil rights groups condemned Higbie.
Watch his comments below:
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