[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 22 (Thursday, February 3, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S514-S515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2497

  Madam President, 80 years ago this month, President Franklin 
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, 2 months after the bombing of 
Pearl Harbor, and it led to some of the most disgraceful chapters in 
our Nation's history--the forced dispossession, relocation, and 
concentration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
  Two-thirds of them were citizens of this country, forced out of their 
homes and into internment camps by their own government. They were our 
neighbors, and they were parents and shopkeepers and students, doctors 
and factory workers. They were Americans in every sense of the word.
  But racist fear forced them into these camps--crowded, squalid, and 
at war with everything that we stand for as a nation. One of those 
camps was Amache in Colorado, where nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans 
were detained against their will.
  This is a photo of that camp.
  I will mention, just because I looked it up--I figured this might be 
true, because we have Senators from Nevada and Texas here--that there 
were five such places in Texas, as well--internment camps.
  But this is one that was in southeastern Colorado, and these children 
are among the first arrivals at Amache, and they were forced to build 
the camp where their own families were interned for the duration of the 
war.
  I can't tell exactly the ages of the children in this photo, but I 
would be surprised if the pages on this floor are any older than them. 
And I would say to the President, in front of the pages, to ask them to 
imagine a time when our country interned people the age of the people 
who are pages on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  I have had the opportunity to visit Amache a few years ago with John 
Hopper, who is a high school teacher, a principal, out there near the 
camp, who along with his students, created the Amache Preservation 
Society.
  There wasn't anybody else to do it. It was just a high school teacher 
and his students. They recognized how much this site meant to Colorado, 
how much this site meant to the country. And, acting completely on 
their own, they worked year after year after year to restore the site 
so that the next generation of Coloradans and Americans--the young 
people sitting on this floor today--would have the opportunity to learn 
about what happened here.
  If it were up to me, every student in Colorado and throughout the 
American West and, for that matter, in our entire country would come to 
this site and learn about the Americans of Amache--the men and women 
who held on to hope year after year, who supported one another, who 
forged a community behind the barbed wires of this site, who never gave 
up on the United States of America, even as it was interning them on 
their own soil.
  And if they did go to Amache, they could learn about one of my 
heroes, Colorado's former Governor Ralph Carr, who spoke out against 
what was happening at a time when most politicians in the West and in 
this country--going all the way up to our President, Franklin 
Roosevelt--were either not speaking out or allowing this to happen.
  At that time, many Western Governors opposed internment camps, not 
just because they were unjust but--I am sorry. At that time, many 
Western Governors were comfortable locking up their fellow citizens so 
long as they were locked up in someone else's State because there was 
an anti-Japanese American prejudice in the land.
  Some Coloradans in nearby communities gave way to shameful fear of 
their fellow citizens and objected to their presence. To say the least, 
they objected to their presence.
  Speaking to an angry crowd one day on the Eastern Plains--I say to my 
colleague from Texas that this is where my colleague Senator Cory 
Gardner was from, this part of the State of Colorado--Governor Carr 
said: ``I am talking to . . . all American people whether their status 
be white, brown or black . . . when I say that if a majority may 
deprive a minority of its freedom, contrary to the terms of the 
Constitution today, then you as a minority may be subjected to the same 
ill-will of the majority tomorrow.''
  He went on: ``The Japanese are protected by the same Constitution 
that

[[Page S515]]

protects us. An American citizen of Japanese descent has the same 
rights as any other citizen. . . . If you harm them, you must first 
harm me.''
  He went on to lose his next election. I think it was to the U.S. 
Senate. And I shudder to think what would have happened if people like 
Governor Carr hadn't been there to stand for our highest ideals as a 
country, or if survivors and their descendants and community leaders, 
many of whom have close connections to Colorado to this day or who live 
in Colorado to this day, hadn't worked for decades to preserve the site 
and the memory of what happened there.
  Thanks to their work, we now have the opportunity to give Amache the 
recognition and resources it deserves. That is why I introduced this 
bill, along with my colleague Senator Hickenlooper, to make Amache part 
of the National Park System. This would ensure Amache has the legal 
status and funding to preserve the site and the memory of what happened 
there for years to come.
  In the House, Congressmen Ken Buck and Joe Neguse introduced the 
bill. Not everybody here would know this, but I know Congressman Buck 
would know this. He and I ran against each other in 2009 and 2010. That 
was a tough, tough, tough election, and I barely--barely--won. I barely 
won. But I am proud to serve with Congressman Buck in the House and 
Congressman Neguse in the House who also have come together, just like 
me and Senator Hickenlooper, to support this bill.
  This site is in Ken Buck's district in Prowers County. Ken won 74 
percent of the vote there in 2020. By the way, I think I won 33 percent 
in 2016, so Ken is outpacing me there. We don't agree on a lot, but we 
agree 100 percent that this matters to our State and the legacy we want 
to pass on to the next generation.
  I have a list of 65 groups that support this bill: the Asian Chamber 
of Commerce, the Colorado Council of Churches, the Colorado Municipal 
League. If that weren't enough, the bill also has the support of the 
chairman and the ranking member of the Environment and Natural 
Resources Committee.
  But today, there is 1 Senator out of 99--and it is not the senior 
Senator from Texas--who is objecting to this bill.
  This bill passed the House of Representatives with all but two votes. 
We have 99 Senators on one side who support this and 1 objecting. I 
have absolutely no idea why that one Senator is objecting, and I hope 
that it is just a misunderstanding of some kind. We fight for a lot of 
things on this floor, but there is a bipartisan tradition going back to 
Teddy Roosevelt of both parties coming together to protect places that 
matter to our heritage as a nation.
  Amache matters to Colorado, and it matters to America. This is about 
whether we are going to ignore the worst parts of our history or lift 
them up and give future generations the opportunity to learn from them 
so that we can move this country closer to our highest ideals.
  So I hope that the Senator who is objecting to this bipartisan bill, 
with massive support in both the House and Senate, that is of critical 
importance to the State of Colorado, that doesn't touch or concern any 
other State in the Union, except to the extent that people from those 
States of the Union might someday like to come here and learn an 
important episode in our country's history--I feel strongly about this, 
in part, because my own mom and her family were dislocated by the same 
war. They were living on the other side of the world in Poland. The 
entire family was killed except for an aunt and my grandparents and my 
mom. And she got here when she was 11 years old, which is probably the 
same age as these young children here who were picked up from 
their homes all across the Western United States and brought to a place 
that they never had known before. It seems to me, the least we could 
do, with this massive bipartisan support, is to pass this bill.

  So as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 255, H.R. 
2497; further, that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to; that 
the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and 
that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, due to 
the winter storms that are shutting down airports around the country, 
Senator Lee, the Senator from Utah, who objects to this unanimous 
consent request is not here, and I had the bad luck to be here when he 
communicated to me his desire that I make an objection on his behalf.
  I would say to my friend from Colorado, I am a noncombatant on this 
issue. I didn't hold his bill. But I know Senator Lee does have an 
amendment, I believe, he wants to offer, and certainly he wants to be 
here to participate in the discussion and vote on the bill. So on his 
behalf, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from Texas 
who, in fact, is a noncombatant in this effort. And I am sorry that he 
has had the misfortune of having to come out here and object.
  I will say that Colorado and Utah are right next to each other, and I 
faced the same travel issues that the Senator from Utah faces, I guess. 
I hope he gets where he is trying to go, but I stayed here this evening 
not because I objected to this but because I thought it was so 
incredibly important for us to get this work done.
  And I want the record to reflect that I actually didn't name the 
Senator who objected, but the Senator from Texas did.
  My fervent hope is that we can work this out because, really 
importantly, we are having the anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's 
decision to inter these young people this month. And if we don't get 
this back to the House of Representatives, we may miss that 
anniversary, and people in Colorado would miss the chance to be able to 
demonstrate that they are carrying this really important legacy 
forward.
  When I think about my mom's experience and the experiences here and 
the country that these young men and women are growing up in who are 
with us today, it just makes me think even more about how important all 
of this is. And, Madam President, I can't think of anybody I would 
rather have this discussion with than with you presiding in the Chair.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warnock). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.