WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley today said that the Wartime Treatment Study Act of 2007 passed the Senate as an amendment to the immigration bill.
Grassley introduced the same bill earlier this year with Sens. Russ Feingold, Edward Kennedy, Daniel Inouye and Joe Lieberman. The bill had been reported favorably from the Senate Judiciary Committee three times.
The bill would establish two commissions: one commission to study the treatment of European Americans and European Latin Americans by our government during World War II, and a second commission to study our treatment of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during the war.
“This review is long overdue,” Grassley said. “The civilians and their families who were deprived of freedom, justice and human rights during World War II deserve the conciliation that this bill would provide them.”
During World War II, the government designated almost 1 million Italian-born and German-born United States resident aliens and their families as “enemy aliens.” There were also Latin Americans of European decent who were displaced, German and Austrian Jews deported and Jewish refugees denied entry to the
In 1980, Congress investigated similar treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The Wartime Treatment Study Act of 2007 will acknowledge the difficulties endured by other ethic groups during this time.
Grassley said, “This bill is a commitment to learn from our past mistakes. Just as George Santayana said in the 1930’s, ‘Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.’”