WHEREAS, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered the incarceration of more than 120,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens in the internment camps during World War II; and

WHEREAS, The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was established by Congress and signed into Public Law 96-317 by President Jimmy Carter on July 31, 1980; and

WHEREAS, The CWRIC was established to review and analyze the official government contention, historically accepted, that the exclusion, forced removal, and detention of Americans of Japanese ancestry were justified by military necessity; and

WHEREAS, Between July and December 1981, the CWRIC held 20 days of hearings and took testimony from more than 750 witnesses; and

WHEREAS, The CWRIC declared in its summary that “Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity, and the decisions that followed from it-exclusion, detention, the ending of detention and the ending of exclusion-were not founded upon military considerations. The broad historical causes that shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”; and

WHEREAS, In response to this finding, Congress adopted the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-383), which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan; and

WHEREAS, The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 states that Congress, on behalf of the nation, apologizes to Americans of Japanese ancestry for their wrongful incarceration; and

WHEREAS, President George Bush wrote in his 1990 letter of apology to each Japanese American, “A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they fully convey our Nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals. We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II”; and

WHEREAS, Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina, who chairs the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, had made comments on a radio call-in program indicating that the internment of Japanese Americans was in their best interests; and

WHEREAS, Congressman Coble, stated, “We were at war,” and called Japanese Americans “an endangered species.” He added that, “For many of these Japanese Americans, it wasn’t safe for them to be on the street”; and

WHEREAS, Congressman Coble said some Japanese Americans “probably were intent on doing harm to us ... just as some of these Arab Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us”; and

WHEREAS, Congressman Coble’s comments are insulting, inflammatory, and inconsistent with the findings of the CWRIC, inconsistent with the federal Civil Liberties Act of 1988, and inconsistent with the letter of apology issued by President George Bush; now, therefore, be it