Delegates Travel To Camp Amache On 80th Anniversary Of Establishment

GRANADA, Colo. (CBS4) - Several legislators representing Colorado traveled to Granada on Saturday to mark a day of remembrance. Eighty years ago on Feb. 19, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order for the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

One of those internment camps, Camp Amache, was established in Granada. Now, the Amache Incarceration Camp is expected to be a national historic site.

About 7,500 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes in the 1940s, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens.

Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper along with Congressmen Ken Buck and Joe Neguse are making sure it will not be erased from history. Their bill also folds Camp Amache into the National Parks System, making it eligible for funding to help with a restoration that, until now, volunteers have done with donations.

Among Colorado delegates in attendance was the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.