The Hill News

Today, the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees are holding a joint hearing on homegrown terrorism on quite an auspicious date. The hearing, titled “Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat to Military Communities Inside the United States,” falls on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Seventy years ago today, nearly 2,500 Americans were killed in a surprise attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The next day, Japanese American husbands and fathers were taken from their homes, under FBI escort, to federal detention centers. A few short months later, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast were sent to camps for the duration of the entirety of World War II. 

They were citizens held as prisoners and charged with no crime. Driving their detention was the U.S. government’s fear of homegrown terrorism and its doubt of the loyalties and beliefs of the communityâ€"of Japanese American citizensâ€"based on no! thing more than race and religion.

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