# How does the children concentration camps compare to the Japanese camps? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 17, 2018, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289 "2018-06-17T21:33:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/41 "2018-06-19T17:10:09Z")
Reported h[e](https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/Immigration_Court_Appearances_Feb_2018.pdf)re (among other places), but it is ultimately just tallying from the official records. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/42 "2018-06-19T17:36:54Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Are you trying to express a concern that Trump might order Latinos to be exterminated, or just proving Godwin’s Law? History does not repeats, it just rhymes. And as Godwin said it: > **[Godwin of Godwin's Law: 'By All Means, Compare These Shitheads to the Nazis'](https://gizmodo.com/godwin-of-godwins-law-by-all-means-compare-these-shi-1797807646)** > > Any masochist who has spent a second taking part in the eye gouge that is “internet discourse” has heard one of its core tenets, Mike Godwin’s law. That law, as recounted by Wired, goes as follows: > [@](#): > > ‘By All Means, Compare These Shitheads to the Nazis’ That BTW was directed to Nazis rallying around the confederated monuments, That kind of people that Trump told and others in his administration described to include very fine Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/43 "2018-06-19T17:50:01Z")
Forgot to add: The point though is that we do know that Trump is not a Nazi, but he is too simpatico with them and the current policy is a bone with lots of very red meat to those kind of “very fine” people. Remember that old saying about those who can not learn about history? It is not just about ignorants repeating the same mistakes of the past, but for all to realize that with the knowledge of history we are bound to do better than the people of the past, and we should. The School of life: What is History for? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLE-5ElGlPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLE-5ElGlPM) > [@](#): > > There’s an annoying saying that goes: THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT. > But that’s suggesting the only thing history is full of is mistakes. > > Yet it’s as fair to say, _those who don’t know history won’t be able to IMPROVE the present_. History can also teach us COURAGE. It’s easy to feel, when you’re pressed up against the present, that things are exceptionally awful right now but they rarely are, once you open the lens wide enough. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/44 "2018-06-19T19:29:11Z")
George Takai [weighs in](http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19/at-least-during-the-internment-are-words-i-thought-id-never-utter-family-separation-children-border/): At least during the internment, when I was just 5 years old, I was not taken from my parents. My family was sent to a racetrack for several weeks to live in a horse stall, but at least we had each other. At least during the internment, my parents were able to place themselves between the horror of what we were facing and my own childish understanding of our circumstances. They told us we were “going on a vacation to live with the horsies.” ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/45 "2018-06-19T20:19:47Z")
Here’s what I understand the reality to be. Firstly, I do want to say that I am firmly, firmly opposed to separating children from their parents. It’s horrible and needs to be called out. That said, this isn’t Auschwitz. They aren’t being beaten or starved and they are only in cages temporarily (isn’t that a nice thing to say? We only put them in cages for a little while.) They are typically placed with some sort of family or what might be considered in earlier days an orphanage, but now would be called a group home or residential facility. They are being fed and cared for, but it doesn’t change the bottom line that you are taking children away from their parents for an undefined amount of time for what is honestly a trivial offense. These are migrants crossing a border, not drug addicts or mass murderers. They are people trying to get away from gang warfare and endemic poverty. It’s a decision that many of us would make under similar circumstances, so portraying them as hardened criminals is ridiculous and taking their children away from them for the crime of wanting to raise those children somewhere where they won’t be afraid to walk outside their homes is frankly inhuman. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/46 "2018-06-19T20:53:54Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > What is the reason for the “hands off” policy? Obviously it doesn’t apply to diaper changing where hands are necessary … I think. [A 16-year-old girl at a South Texas facility had to teach other children how to change diapers.](http://www.businessinsider.com/immigration-children-diapers-2018-6) ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/47 "2018-06-20T14:17:56Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Here’s what I understand the reality to be. Firstly, I do want to say that I am firmly, firmly opposed to separating children from their parents. It’s horrible and needs to be called out. > > That said, this isn’t Auschwitz. They aren’t being beaten or starved and they are only in cages temporarily (isn’t that a nice thing to say? We only put them in cages for a little while.) They are typically placed with some sort of family or what might be considered in earlier days an orphanage, but now would be called a group home or residential facility. They are being fed and cared for, but it doesn’t change the bottom line that you are taking children away from their parents for an undefined amount of time for what is honestly a trivial offense. These are migrants crossing a border, not drug addicts or mass murderers. They are people trying to get away from gang warfare and endemic poverty. It’s a decision that many of us would make under similar circumstances, so portraying them as hardened criminals is ridiculous and taking their children away from them for the crime of wanting to raise those children somewhere where they won’t be afraid to walk outside their homes is frankly inhuman. The problem with this line of reasoning is that while what they are doing is very understandable if you decriminalize illegal border crossing then you no longer have a border policy. Scores of millions of people live in countries to our south that are troubled by gangs and endemic poverty. Should we let them all in? Billions of people around the world live in countries that are violent and fill with poverty, do we let them in too? If we are to have an immigration policy that means it is necessary to detain and deport people whose only crime is to try to move to a richer and safer place. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/48 "2018-06-20T14:35:12Z")
The reality is that the Trump Administration chose this because they want to traumatize children to discourage immigration. More evidence of this: [ICE Shutters Detention Alternative for Asylum-seekers](https://www.voanews.com/a/ice-shutters-detention-alternative-asylum-seekers/3893854.html) Supporters of Trump need to just own that. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/49 "2018-06-20T15:21:07Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem with this line of reasoning is that while what they are doing is very understandable if you decriminalize illegal border crossing then you no longer have a border policy. Scores of millions of people live in countries to our south that are troubled by gangs and endemic poverty. Should we let them all in? Billions of people around the world live in countries that are violent and fill with poverty, do we let them in too? > If we are to have an immigration policy that means it is necessary to detain and deport people whose only crime is to try to move to a richer and safer place. Sure, I never took a stance against deportations. I did take a stand on taking a mother’s baby away from her for wanting to make its life better. That’s a problem to me. I liken it to stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving children. It might be a crime, but the response is compassion for the ‘criminal,’ not aggression and punishment. You have to really consider what it is that we’re doing. We’re trying to make it so emotionally devastating on migrants that they prefer to stay in gang-infested ‘sh\*tholes’ (Donald Trump’s words, not mine) to crossing the border. If your ‘border security plan’ is to hurt people so badly that they prefer living in misery, then you’re a very sorry excuse for a human being and undeserving of leading our nation. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/50 "2018-06-20T16:35:10Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The problem with this line of reasoning is that while what they are doing is very understandable if you decriminalize illegal border crossing then you no longer have a border policy. Scores of millions of people live in countries to our south that are troubled by gangs and endemic poverty. Should we let them all in? Billions of people around the world live in countries that are violent and fill with poverty, do we let them in too? This is one of the more obvious examples of “fallacy of the excluded middle” I’ve seen on this subject, which is saying a lot. No serious person has suggested the USA, or any other country, simply let in a limitless number of people. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/51 "2018-06-20T18:42:44Z")
I am mostly just starting to get annoyed at the constant, non-stop, full-throttle comparisons of this border policy to the Holocaust. _I do not support this border policy._ It is _fucked-up._ I have vivid memories of being separated from my parents (not by law or anything, just by geography) and it was exceptionally traumatic, starting off a series of anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder that would last, on and off, for the rest of my life up until literally last year. This is fucked up. Separating a kid from his parents is the worst thing you can do to him short of outright physical abuse. But…why isn’t it possible for people to criticize this policy for the evil that it is, _without invoking Nazis?_ My Facebook feed has been BLOWING UP over the past 4 days with pictures of starved Jews in Auschwitz, boxcars, barbed wire fences from the Holocaust, pictures of Hitler and Goebbels, side by side with pictures of the border situation and full-on equating the two as if they are exactly the same thing. It really bothers me. I have family members who were killed by Nazis. Virtually everyone in America, if you include combat deaths and prisoners of war, has family members who were killed by the Nazis. And speaking of the “Japanese concentration camps”, yeah this border policy is fucked up and it is comparable to Japanese internment, but when I think of “Japanese concentration camps” I think of the Kempeitai and Unit 731, which were _actual_ Nazi-style death camps where POWs were brutally tortured, executed, and experimented on. It galls me that there’s like, no middle ground anymore between “good” and “Nazis.” I ask again, why isn’t it possible for people to criticize this border policy _without_ comparing it to Nazis? Everyone has been told since the Holocaust, “never forget.” And I understand that part of that is stopping atrocities from happening again, and this border detention is arguably an atrocity. But another part of “never forget” is to keep things in perspective and not just talk about any and all draconian policies as being the same as the fucking Holocaust. You know an issue that has always upset me and which I’ve always tried to raise awareness about? The private prison industry and the drug war, which separates families from their children, treats human like cattle, and warehouses thousands of people in cages for basically no reason. Not really much different from what’s happening at the border right now. You know what I’ve never, ever, ever done as long as this issue has been of concern to me? Say that it’s like the Holocaust. Why am _I_ seemingly the _only_ one raising this point, amidst this torrential barrage of Holocaust comparisons? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/52 "2018-06-20T18:48:03Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > Why am _I_ seemingly the _only_ one raising this point, amidst this torrential barrage of Holocaust comparisons? When the President identifies an “infestation” that is to be solved by concentration camps, then it’s not going to be a shock that people make Holocaust comparisons. It’s because, for a lot of people, that is the only historical precedent that comes to mind. It’s the same reason people make constant Harry Potter analogies. They need to read another book. There’s a solution though. Get smarter FB friends. Then your feed can be filled with comparisons to Japanese internment and our separation of Native American children. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/53 "2018-06-20T19:14:24Z")
The people making these comparisons on my FB feed include tenured professors, former Army officers, successful businesspeople, community activists who have done a lot of good, and otherwise extremely credentialed, educated, and respectable people. And I like them too much to publicly challenge their perspective on FB, so I’m just stuck with ranting about it here. It’s like, I respect these people but they seem to be mired in a form of hyperbole that I typically associate with college students. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/54 "2018-06-20T19:23:32Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Sure, I never took a stance against deportations. I did take a stand on taking a mother’s baby away from her for wanting to make its life better. That’s a problem to me. I liken it to stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving children. It might be a crime, but the response is compassion for the ‘criminal,’ not aggression and punishment. You have to really consider what it is that we’re doing. We’re trying to make it so emotionally devastating on migrants that they prefer to stay in gang-infested ‘sh\*tholes’ (Donald Trump’s words, not mine) to crossing the border. If your ‘border security plan’ is to hurt people so badly that they prefer living in misery, then you’re a very sorry excuse for a human being and undeserving of leading our nation. If you believe in deportations you have to make exceptions for people who claim asylum. If you are allowing people to make asylum claims then you have to have a process to adjudicate those claims. These means not deporting them until a hearing. You could just them go with a promise to come back for the hearing but according the the government 40% of people don’t show up for the hearing. You could only detain the single ones until the hearing, but this incentivizes people to bring kids to the border which puts them in danger. It is against the law to detain the kids along with the parents so if you detain parents there is no choice but to separate them. Ted Cruz’s bill solves this dilemma but we will see if democrats allow it to be passed. Indications are they will not. The border security plan is not to ‘hurt people so badly they prefer to live in misery’ but to give migrants a smaller chance of success of illegally immigrating so that more of them decide not to take that chance. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/55 "2018-06-20T19:24:18Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > The people making these comparisons on my FB feed include tenured professors, former Army officers, successful businesspeople, community activists who have done a lot of good, and otherwise extremely credentialed, educated, and respectable people. And I like them too much to publicly challenge their perspective on FB, so I’m just stuck with ranting about it here. It’s like, I respect these people but they seem to be mired in a form of hyperbole that I typically associate with college students. Uh, what you are ignoring is that we have a president that (by his own words) liked to read Mein Kampf or the Hitler speeches and expressed sympathy towards the “very fine people” that are among the Nazis of today. And as pointed before, History needs to be learned so then we can and will do better. IOW we do have institutions ( **that we do need to support more than ever** ) to prevent even a not quite evil enough, semi-evil, quasi-evil, margarine of evil, Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough Mango Mussoliny that we have as president; from tippy-toeing towards the ideals of the dictators and strong men that he kowtows. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/56 "2018-06-20T19:27:57Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > but according the the government 40% of people don’t show up for the hearing. That’s false. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/57 "2018-06-20T19:57:24Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The border security plan is not to ‘hurt people so badly they prefer to live in misery’ but to give migrants a smaller chance of success of illegally immigrating so that more of them decide not to take that chance. The only way to make illegal immigration less attractive is to make it worse than the conditions they are leaving. There is a high probability of dying in Guatemala and Honduras these days. How do you compete with that without becoming irredeemably evil? You would have have to kill the children to change the calculus these refugees are making when they decide to travel a thousand miles and throw themselves on the mercy of a foreign government. Are you prepared to do that? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/58 "2018-06-20T19:59:55Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > That’s false. There’s an article in the NY Times right now on this subject written by someone named Richard Parker. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/59 "2018-06-20T20:00:46Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > There’s an article in the NY Times right now on this subject written by someone named Richard Parker. We are legion. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289/60 "2018-06-20T21:00:01Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > There’s an article in the NY Times right now on this subject written by someone named Richard Parker. Link? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-the-children-concentration-camps-compare-to-the-japanese-camps/816289.md?page=4)