in 1940 president roosevelt proposed a bill to admit 20,000 jewish children who might otherwise perish in the in europe over quota. it was rejected by the congress after a congressman from mississippi got up on the floor of the house and said there may be 20,000 cute kids now but in 15 years there will be 20,000 damn kikes. and that was his direct quote, and it defeated the bill. the exact same hysteria. congressman honda, it seems like the rhetoric in the house and on the campaign trail has gotten really, really ugly, if i can say that. sure. are you having conversations with your colleagues over there about are you sure you want to say what you re saying, do you recognize how history might judge some of the things that are being said in the people s house right now? no, i haven t had a lot of
be 20,000 cute kids now but in 15 years there will be 20,000 damn kikes. and that was his direct quote, and it defeated the bill. the exact same hysteria. congressman honda, it seems like the rhetoric in the house and on the campaign trail has gotten really, really ugly, if i can say that. sure. are you having conversations with your colleagues over there about are you sure you want to say what you re saying, do you recognize how history might judge some of the things that are being said in the people s house right now? no, i haven t had a lot of conversations with those who ve been saying that, but there s been a lot of talk among our own colleagues of the same mind. today we have 14 asian-americans in congress where in 1942 there was zero. so we re talking amongst ourselves about how we re going to approach this situation. and i think that we have colleagues like jerry nadler who
well, i think it is a fair parallel to draw. it has nothing to do with the nazis. it has to do with the reaction of americans to refugees, in that case from the nazis, in this case from isis. and the hysteria was similar. these were people in desperate, desperate need, and people wanted to reject them on the grounds that maybe they were in this case terrorists, in that case communists or whatever. in 1940 president roosevelt proposed a bill to admit 20,000 jewish children who might otherwise perish in the in europe over quota. it was rejected by the congress after a congressman from mississippi got up on the floor of the house and said there may be 20,000 cute kids now but in 15 years there will be 20,000 damn kikes. and that was his direct quote, and it defeated the bill. the exact same hysteria. congressman honda, it seems like the rhetoric in the house and on the campaign trail has
are the victims of isis, they are not isis. is it striking you, congressman, that the house is able to get this bill together on the floor and voted in such a short period of time, 16 months into the bombing campaign against isis there is as yet no authorization for use of military force from the congress. the paris attacks i think delivered an emotional response for many people but we in congress have to be rational. and the problem with this bill is it also directs our intelligence agencies to focus on the wrong problem. you have a director of national intelligence, the fbi director and the secretary of homeland security who under this bill would have to personally certify each and every file. so last year over 14,000 syrian and iraqi refugees came to the united states. if they just spent half an hour on each file, that would be essentially 7,000 hours, 300 days a year. they could not do their jobs. they d just be reviewing whether
conversations with those who ve been saying that, but there s been a lot of talk among our own colleagues of the same mind. today we have 14 asian-americans in congress where in 1942 there was zero. so we re talking amongst ourselves about how we re going to approach this situation. and i think that we have colleagues like jerry nadler who understands the situation. and you know, jerry is very, very correct that in 1939 this country rejected 900 jews who were coming here as refugees. we turned them away. that is just as today we re trying to turn away syrian refugees from this country. this is not what america s about. this is not what our character s about. and also our constitution is also one that we have to be cognizant of. the fact that 120,000 japanese were put into camps was a breach of the constitutional protection. and that created a lot of