Apology needed for illegal imprisonment

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided some 82,000 Japanese Americans with a presidential apology and $20,000 redress payments for WWII internment, left out one detail; over 2,000 other Japanese people who were illegally captured.

These were Japanese citizens of more than 13 Latin American countries who were captured by the United States for use in a hostage exchange program with Japan. To date, these people have received no redress.

The Civil Liberties Act should be provided with funding so that these people can be redressed accordingly. To ignore these people simply because they were not American citizens at the time of internment is to defy the very spirit of the act.

If America wishes to make indemnity for its atrocities during WWII, then we should do so thoroughly, and make sure that all of the innocent citizens we punished unnecessarily are compensated for their pains. While an apology and redress payment are not nearly sufficient reparation for the pain we inflicted during the war, they are necessary measures to heal old wounds.