Trump Camp’s Talk of Registry and Japanese Internment Raises Muslim Fears




A prominent supporter of Donald J. Trump set off concern and condemnation on behalf of Muslims on Wednesday after citing World War II-era Japanese-American internment camps as a “precedent” for an immigrant registry suggested by a member of the president-elect’s transition team.

The supporter, Carl Higbie, a former spokesman for Great America PAC, an independent fund-raising committee that backed Mr. Trump, made the comments in an appearance on “The Kelly File” on Fox News.

He was referring to a suggestion by Kris Kobach, a member of Mr. Trump’s transition team, that the new administration could reinstate a national registry for immigrants from countries where terrorist groups were active.

“We’ve done it based on race, we’ve done it based on religion, we’ve done it based on region,” Mr. Higbie said in an appearance on “The Kelly File.” “We’ve done it with Iran back — back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese.”

“You’re not proposing that we go back to the days of internment camps, I hope,” said Megyn Kelly, the host of the show.

Mr. Higbie, a former Navy SEAL who served two tours in Iraq, denied that, but said, “We need to protect America first.”

He stood by his comments in a phone interview on Thursday morning, saying that he had been alluding to the fact that the Supreme Court had “upheld things as horrific as Japanese internment camps.”

“There is historical, factual precedent to do things are not politically popular and sometimes not right, in the interest of national security,” he said, adding that he “fundamentally” disagreed with “the internment camp mantra and doing it at all.”