‘Outrage’ over ‘attempt to intimidate’ Calif. governor’s news conference at JANM.
By P.C. Staff
The Japanese American Citizens League issued a statement Aug. 15 excoriating what it described as an “attempt to intimidate” California Gov. Gavin Newsom with the appearance of dozens of armed and masked Customs and Border Patrol operatives at a news conference held Aug. 14 at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.
Subsequent to that incident, Newsom filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records from the Department of Homeland Security that would provide background to the decision-making process that led to CBP agents appearing at the same time and location of the governor’s news conference and also, according to a Los Angeles Times report, “… communications between federal law enforcement officials and Fox News, which allowed the Trump-friendly media outlet to embed a reporter with Border Patrol that day.”
The CBP presence near the entrance to JANM occurred simultaneously to Newsom’s news conference, held at JANM’s Democracy Forum. Newsom was in Little Tokyo to announce his plan to hold a special election in November that would let Democrats redraw voting districts and attempt to give the party five more seats in the House of Representatives as a countermeasure to efforts in Texas to also redraw districts but to instead increase by five the number of Republicans representing that state in the House.
In its statement, which was posted to its Facebook page (facebook.com/JACLNational), JACL said that the area where the CPB gathered was “the historic site where, in 1942, members of our community were ordered to report for forced removal to temporary detention centers and, later, to concentration camps” and an “affront to the memory of the thousands of Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from this very site over 80 years ago.”
JANM, meantime, on its FB page (facebook.com/jamuseum), reported: “As the press conference began, around seventy-five armed Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents swarmed the sidewalk in front of the Museum and arrested at least one passerby.”
In the same post, Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of JANM, wrote: “It was a deliberate act of provocation and intimidation. The parallels are stark: entire communities were forcibly removed from the West Coast in 1942 and today our immigrant brothers and sisters face the terror of ICE and CBP raids across the country. It was a miscarriage of justice then, and it is a miscarriage of justice now.”
Burroughs also wrote: “The Democracy Center was chosen by Governor Gavin Newsom for a major press conference on California’s redistricting initiative—a choice that speaks volumes for the visibility of our mission and the importance of the work we do every day to defend the principles that define a free and just society.”
