A Virginia mayor cited America’s mass detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II in a public announcement voicing his support to deny Syrian refugees the opportunity to resettle in the United States.

In a letter on official city stationery, Roanoke, Va., Mayor David A. Bowers called on local governments and nonprofits to join more than half of the nation’s governors who have said they do not want to accept Syrian refugees into their states, citing security concerns after last week’s Paris terrorist attacks that killed at least 129 people.

But there was one paragraph in Bowers’ letter today—which called Roanoke a “welcoming city”—that was highly unusual:

“I’m reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from (Islamic State) now is just as real and series as that from our enemies then,” Bowers said in the statement.

For many public officials across the nation, the mass detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II has long been one of the most embarrassing moments in the nation’s history—a dark chapter that has been apologized for and legally repudiated.

A quick search of the word “Roanoke” on Twitter revealed a torrent of criticism against the city for the mayor’s reference to Japanese American internment.

One person on the city’s Facebook page called the mayor’s comments “utterly disgraceful,” adding: “In no way should this ever be spoken of in a positive manner, nor should it be used as a justification for denying refuge to people fleeing from the very terrorists you are so concerned about.”

The nation’s governors have no authority to reject the federal government’s resettlement of Syrian refugees into their states through a long-established program. The Obama administration has plans to accept about 10,000 refugees this fiscal year.

But political opposition to the plan grew quickly this week as the world has been transfixed with the grim aftermath of the Paris attacks. On Thursday, Congress will debate whether to pause the resettlement program.

President Barack Obama said that denying entry to Syrian refugees would be like “slamming the door in their faces” and a “betrayal of our values.”

Throughout the debate this week, many on social media platforms referenced the agony of the Japanese internment and the fear of Jewish migrants during World War II as reasons why Americans should not turn their backs on Syrian refugees.

In 1942, America was reeling from the Japanese attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and was building a war machine to fight its enemies around the world.

In a memorandum to the U.S. secretary of Defense, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, commanding general of the Western Defense Command, laid out in stark racial terms why Japanese Americans should be evacuated off the Pacific Coast.

“In the war in which we are now engaged, racial affinities are not severed by migration,” DeWitt wrote. “The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second- and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.”

DeWitt described more than 100,000 Japanese Americans as “potential enemies.”

“The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken,” he said at the time.

DeWitt wasn’t alone. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously urged Roosevelt to go ahead with Japanese detention, saying it was difficult “if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens.”

In February 1942, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans being uprooted and held in detention camps for several years, along with thousands of people of German and Italian descent.

President Gerald Ford rescinded the detention order in 1976, and in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation that apologized and paid reparations for the U.S. government’s decision to apprehend and place more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps.

When the checks and letters of apology went out in 1991, President George H.W. Bush wrote to surviving families: “A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they fully convey our nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals. We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese-Americans during World War II.”

Roanoke Mayor Bowers did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

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