Japanese Internment

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Many legal decisions were made during the internment as well. Some of these cases even reached the Supreme Court. Three cases of not are Korematsu v. United States, Yasui v. United States and Hirabayashi v. United States.

Korematsu v. United States involved Fred Korematsu an American born Japanese refusing to leave his home in California. This case was important because it questioned if the President and Congress went beyond their powers and violated the Constitutional rights of American Citizens. The Supreme court had decided that they did not and that the Order in which Korematsu violated was not unconstitutional, because they felt they needed to protect the people against sabotage and espionage. Korematsu’s case was overturned in November or 1983, because the government knowingly submitted false information.

Hirabayashi v. Untied States was along different line; in the fact it had to do with whether or not such curfews that were issued were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court upheld this as well stating that curfews were Constitutional, but only during war time and only against the group in which the war against was orientated from. In 1983 Hirabayashi filed a coram nobis proceeding Saying that new information had come to light showing the Department of War suppressed evidence, Even though the government came to recognize this they asked the Supreme Court to terminate by dismissal of the charges. The Supreme Court denied the governments motion and upheld Hirabayashi’s claim.

Even though these cases have been over turned and a Great unjust was proven to have been done to the Japanese Americans, our Government still has the right to Intern any group or population that they see as a threat during war time. In thinking about this we can almost come to a realization of the Japanese internment camps happening all over again, it may just be against another ethnic background in terms of the war on terror.

References

Korematsu v. United States (No. 22). (1944).

Library.org, T. (n.d.). The War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/background.htm .

openjurist.org/828/f2d/591/hirabayashi-v-united-states-k-hirabayashi. (n.d.).

Roosevelt, F. D. (Febuary 19, 1942). Executive Order 9066.