Timcast IRL panel discusses putting “all the Chinese Americans” in internment camps in a hypothetical war with China

Kevin Smith: “And I'm sure people are going to compare it to ICE detention facilities, though that's not remotely the same thing”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From an August 14, 2026, video uploaded to the YouTube channel of Timcast IRL

PHIL LABONTE: People that come to America now, they don't assimilate the way they used to would. Back in the '30s, '40s, '50s, the people that came here, if they were able to get here, they they be they were trying to become American.

IAN CROSSLAND: Yeah. I think throughout history — I wish I had some examples off the top of my head of, like, when you're invading a country that if there were your citizens were in that country, if people that spoke your language lived in that other land, as soon as you get there, they're going to join you.

So if all the Chinese Americans, for instance, here with even maybe some family in China, maybe they don't — if there was a war between the Chinese and the Americans, and the Chinese landed in, like, Alaska and started coming through Canada, what — do think we should intern all the Chinese Americans we can find? Because it kind of seems like we should.

LABONTE: Well, I — again, nowadays, I think it's a different context. There were there have been so many people that have come here illegally. China has absolutely been using birth tourism. I mean, tourism. They go to Guam. 

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LABONTE: Yeah. You know, basically, China has been — there are people that can, or there there are companies that will, you know, fly pregnant women to U.S. territories, so that way the child can be born there. Once the child's born there, they get a birth certificate, and then back China with them. And that kind of thing has been going on for, you know, 30 years or whatever. I don't know I don't know the degree to which it's been going on for 30 years, but I know in the past, you know, 10 — five, 10, it's been — there's been a significant increase.

KEVIN SMITH: I mean, it is so crazy, the concept of birth tourism — there is such a difference between, like, people who are going through the process and want to be here for and then, like, one to, like even if — even if you use — even if you give people the best of intentions, you're pregnant, and then you go on vacation to New York for the Saint Patrick's Day parade and go into early labor accidentally, not intention — you have every intention of going back, and you have a kid, he's an American citizen? That is bananas. That concept.

I mean, that that came up during the World Cup. The — Flo Balogun — that literally happened to his mother. She came here on vacation. She was too pregnant to leave. Now he's an American citizen. It worked out for us because he's really, really good. But, you know —

LABONTE: It didn't work out for us. It worked out for the team, I guess.

SMITH: Worked out for the team. But it's just the concept that that's available is bananas.

CROSSLAND: I know I don't want to implicate all Chinese Americans because that's horrific. That's why — I know plenty of Chinese people, Chinese Americans, I don't want them interned if there was some conflict between the Chinese, but how can you tell? How can you tell who's who? How can you tell where their allegiances are? And how do you know if their allegiances will or won't flip if the tide of war starts to change?

SMITH: Well, I don't think you could do that now because I think while they were interning the Japanese, a lot of people probably didn't know what was happening. You know, like, they were like, you can't do stuff like that now — with social media and stuff, there'd be there'd be protests outside of each one of them. And and I'm not saying you should, but I don't think that — I don't think that that's a possibility now. And I'm sure people are going to compare it to ICE detention facilities, though that's not remotely the same thing.

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LABONTE: We've had some some discussions about that, and I think that even entertaining those arguments is a bad — a bad strategy, because if you entertain an argument, you're implicitly saying well, that's a reasonable perspective. You know, I'm going to address this. That's a reasonable thing, so let me explain why you're wrong. That kind of stuff is just I like, out of hand — oh, shut up.