Former U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that his supporters charged and imprisoned in connection with the Jan 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol have been treated like Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.

Trump's comparison of the rioters with the around 120,000 innocent people of Japanese descent who were held in internment camps across the United States during the war came with less than a month to go until the presidential election.

"Why are they still being held? Nobody's ever been treated like this," Trump said, adding, "Nobody's ever -- maybe the Japanese during the Second World War, frankly."

The Republican presidential nominee made the remarks in a live interview with pro-Trump radio host Dan Bongino.

The incarceration of Japanese Americans -- about two-thirds of whom were born in the United States -- was carried out under an executive order issued on Feb 19, 1942, by then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

The federal government detained them on suspicion that they could spy for Japan or sabotage the war effort.

The U.S. Congress passed a bill in 1988 that provided $20,000 to each surviving internee and apologized for the executive order that forced them into the wartime camps.