Dozens of people gathered outside the Hawaiʻi State Capitol over the weekend to protest the immigration raids now sweeping the country.
President Donald Trump has promised to build new detention facilities across the country and on the military base at Guantanamo Bay. Just this weekend a federal court blocked the president from sending three Venezuelan nationals to Guantanamo, and many legal questions about his plan are up in the air.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration isn't the first time the U.S. has undertaken a mass detention. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the roundup of 120,000 Japanese Americans including 1,800 here in Hawaiʻi.
Elizabeth Fujiwara has worked as a civil rights lawyer for 38 years. Through her career and researching her own family history, she took a closer look at the detention of Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during World War II. She testified in support of House Bill 73, which would prohibit the use of public lands for immigration detention facilities.
The Conversation talked with Fujiwara about the historical parallels between the incarceration of Japanese Americans in 1941 and the current raids looking for immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Feb. 10, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
