A group of U.S. congressmen on Friday introduced a bill to compensate Latin Americans of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly interred in the United States during World War II.
The Wartime Parity and Justice Act, introduced by California Democrat Xavier Becerra and 20 other congressmen, would require the U.S. government to pay $20,000 each to more than 2,000 Japanese-Latin Americans relocated from their homes in Central and South America during the war.
The proposed legislation also requires the U.S. government to issue an official apology and allows Japanese-Latin Americans access to a $45 million educational fund authorized in 1988 for use by Japanese-Americans.
"While Congress addressed some of our government's abuses against most Japanese-Americans during World War II, this group of over 2,000 people was regrettably left out," Becerra said in a statement.
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 offered $20,000 each for 81,000 of the 120,000 Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps.