MSNBC’s Menendez to Rep. Jeffries: ‘What Are You Going To Do to Prevent the Next Japanese Internment and Protect Venezuelans?’

MENENDEZ: “Leader Jeffries, President Trump just invoked the Alien Enemies Act to target Venezuelan nationals. We haven’t seen this law be used to target a single ethnicity since the Japanese internment. What are you going to do to prevent the next Japanese internment and protect Venezuelans who call this country home?”
Jeffries: “So we have a broken immigration system. We’ve got to fix it. We’ve got to fix it in a comprehensive and bipartisan way. And all of us within the Democratic Party, we oppose illegal immigration. We believe that if you’re a violent felon, you should be deported. But we also can’t go down this road that the Trump Administration is taking us on and potentially deport American citizens, deport legal and lawful permanent residents, and break up law-abiding immigrant families who are contributing to this country. This particular law has only been invoked three different times in our nation’s almost 250-year history. The War of 1812, World War I and World War II. There’s a reason why it’s been limited in its application. Those circumstances do not appear to exist right now. And that’s the reason why a court has halted the Trump Administration’s actions. And we’re going to stand strongly in support of the rule of law and its application, which the Trump Administration appears to be violating in this particular instance.”