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Available at a high school and middle school levels. Case Background : Background information at three reading levels. The majority found it necessary only to rule on the validity of the specific provision under which Korematsu was convicted: the provision requiring him to leave the designated area.
The majority ruled that there was sufficient danger and a sufficient relationship between the order and the prevention of the danger to justify requiring Korematsu to evacuate.
The majority said the order was valid. The dissenters disagreed. They put forth their position that the order should have been considered as a whole, and the Court should have considered the other contemporaneous orders, all of which, when considered together resulted in the imprisonment of U. Main content Facts and Case Summary — Korematsu v. Background About 10 weeks after the U. Facts Fred Korematsu, 23, was a Japanese-American citizen who did not comply with the order to leave his home and job, despite the fact that his parents had abandoned their home and their flower-nursery business in preparation for reporting to a camp.
Reopening the Case In , a pro bono legal team with new evidence re-opened the year-old case in a federal district court on the basis of government misconduct. Constantin, U. The judicial test of whether the Government, on a plea of military necessity, can validly deprive an individual of any of his constitutional rights is whether the deprivation is reasonably related to a public danger that is so "immediate, imminent, and impending" as not to admit of delay and not to permit the intervention of ordinary constitutional processes to alleviate the danger.
United States v. Russell , 13 Wall. Harmony , 13 How. Thomas, 91 U. Being an obvious racial discrimination, the. It further deprives these individuals of their constitutional rights to live and work where they will, to establish a home where they choose and to move about freely. In excommunicating them without benefit of hearings, this order also deprives them of all their constitutional rights to procedural due process.
Yet no reasonable relation to an "immediate, imminent, and impending" public danger is evident to support this racial restriction, which is one of the most sweeping and complete deprivations of constitutional rights in the history of this nation in the absence of martial law.
It must be conceded that the military and naval situation in the spring of was such as to generate a very real fear of invasion of the Pacific Coast, accompanied by fears of sabotage and espionage in that area.
The military command was therefore justified in adopting all reasonable means necessary to combat these dangers. In adjudging the military action taken in light of the then apparent dangers, we must not erect too high or too meticulous standards; it is necessary only that the action have some reasonable relation to the removal of the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage.
But the exclusion, either temporarily or permanently, of all persons with Japanese blood in their veins has no such reasonable relation. And that relation is lacking because the exclusion order necessarily must rely for its reasonableness upon the assumption that all persons of Japanese ancestry may have a dangerous tendency to commit sabotage and espionage and to aid our Japanese enemy in other ways.
It is difficult to believe that reason, logic, or experience could be marshalled in support of such an assumption. That this forced exclusion was the result in good measure of this erroneous assumption of racial guilt, rather than.
Justification for the exclusion is sought, instead, mainly upon questionable racial and sociological grounds not. Individuals of Japanese ancestry are condemned because they are said to be "a large, unassimilated, tightly knit racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion.
The need for protective custody is also asserted. The report refers, without identity, to "numerous incidents of violence," as well as to other admittedly unverified or cumulative incidents. From this, plus certain other events not shown to have been connected with the Japanese Americans, it is concluded that the "situation was fraught with danger to the Japanese population itself," and that the general public "was ready to take matters into its own hands.
The main reasons relied upon by those responsible for the forced evacuation, therefore, do not prove a reasonable relation between the group characteristics of Japanese Americans and the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage. The reasons appear, instead, to be largely an accumulation of much of the misinformation, half-truths and insinuations that for years have been directed against Japanese Americans by people with racial and economic prejudices -- the same people who have been among the foremost advocates of the evacuation.
Especially is this so when every charge relative to race, religion, culture, geographical location, and legal and economic status has been substantially discredited by independent studies made by experts in these matters. The military necessity which is essential to the validity of the evacuation order thus resolves itself into a few intimations that certain individuals actively aided the enemy, from which it is inferred that the entire group of Japanese Americans could not be trusted to be or remain loyal to the United States.
No one denies, of course, that there were some disloyal persons of Japanese descent on the Pacific Coast who did all in their power to aid their ancestral land. Similar disloyal activities have been engaged in by many persons of German, Italian and even more pioneer stock in our country. But to infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that, under our system of law, individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights.
Moreover, this inference, which is at the very heart of the evacuation orders, has been used in support of the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy.
To give constitutional sanction to that inference in this case, however well intentioned may have been the military command on the Pacific Coast, is to adopt one of the cruelest of the rationales used by our enemies to destroy the dignity of the individual and to encourage and open the door to discriminatory actions against other minority groups in the passions of tomorrow.
No adequate reason is given for the failure to treat these Japanese Americans on an individual basis by holding investigations and hearings to separate the loyal from the disloyal, as was done in the case of persons of German and Italian ancestry. See House Report No. It is asserted merely that the loyalties of this group "were unknown and time was of the essence.
Leisure and deliberation seem to have been more of the essence than speed. And the fact that conditions were not such as to warrant a declaration of martial law adds strength to the belief that the factors of time and military necessity were not as urgent as they have been represented to be. Moreover, there was no adequate proof that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the military and naval intelligence services did not have the espionage and sabotage situation well in hand during this long period.
I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life.
It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States.
They must, accordingly, be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment, and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
This report is dated June 5, , but was not made public until January, Further evidence of the Commanding General's attitude toward individuals of Japanese ancestry is revealed in his voluntary testimony on April 13, , in San Francisco before the House Naval Affairs Subcommittee to Investigate Congested Areas, Part 3, pp. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty.
The west coast contains too many vital installations essential to the defense of the country to allow any Japanese on this coast. The danger of the Japanese was, and is now -- if they are permitted to come back -- espionage and sabotage. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty. But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.
Sabotage and espionage will make problems as long as he is allowed in this area. The Final Report, p. Final Report, p. To the extent that assimilation is a problem, it is largely the result of certain social customs and laws of the American general public. Studies demonstrate that persons of Japanese descent are readily susceptible to integration in our society if given the opportunity. The failure to accomplish an ideal status of assimilation, therefore, cannot be charged to the refusal of these persons to become Americanized, or to their loyalty to Japan.
And the retention by some persons of certain customs and religious practices of their ancestors is no criterion of their loyalty to the United States. Final Report, pp. No sinister correlation between the emperor worshipping activities and disloyalty to America was shown. The charge of "dual citizenship" springs from a misunderstanding of the simple fact that Japan, in the past, used the doctrine of jus sanguinis, as she had a right to do under international law, and claimed as her citizens all persons born of Japanese nationals wherever located.
Japan has greatly modified this doctrine, however, by allowing all Japanese born in the United States to renounce any claim of dual citizenship and by releasing her claim as to all born in the United States after We have had various foreign language schools in this country for generations without considering their existence as ground for racial discrimination.
No subversive activities or teachings have been shown in connection with the Japanese schools. McWilliams, Prejudice, Such persons constitute a very small part of the entire group, and most of them belong to the Kibei movement -- the actions and membership of which are well known to our Government agents. This insinuation, based purely upon speculation and circumstantial evidence, completely overlooks the fact that the main geographic pattern of Japanese population was fixed many years ago with reference to economic, social and soil conditions.
Limited occupational outlets and social pressures encouraged their concentration near their initial points of entry on the Pacific Coast. That these points may now be near certain strategic military and industrial areas is no proof of a diabolical purpose on the part of Japanese Americans. This dangerous doctrine of protective custody, as proved by recent European history, should have absolutely no standing as an excuse for the deprivation of the rights of minority groups.
House Report No. In this instance, moreover, there are only two minor instances of violence on record involving persons of Japanese ancestry. Public Affairs Pamphlets, No. One of these incidents the reputed dropping of incendiary bombs on an Oregon forest occurred on Sept. See New York Times, Sept. Special interest groups were extremely active in applying pressure for mass evacuation.
Austin E. Anson, managing secretary of the Salinas Vegetable Grower-Shipper Association, has frankly admitted that. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown men. They came into this valley to work, and they stayed to take over. They undersell the white man in the markets. They work their women and children while the white farmer has to pay wages for his help.
If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we'd never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we don't want them back when the war ends, either.
Post 24, 66 May 9, See U. During a period of six months, the alien tribunals or hearing boards set up by the British Government shortly after the outbreak of the present war summoned and examined approximately 74, German and Austrian aliens. These tribunals determined whether each individual enemy alien was a real enemy of the Allies or only a "friendly enemy.
Law , ; House Report No. Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity, and a citizen of California by. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that, apart from the matter involved here, he is not law-abiding and well disposed.
Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived. Even more unusual is the series of military orders which made this conduct a crime. They forbid such a one to remain, and they also forbid him to leave. They were so drawn that the only way Korematsu could avoid violation was to give himself up to the military authority.
This meant submission to custody, examination, and transportation out of the territory, to be followed by indeterminate confinement in detention camps. A citizen's presence in the locality, however, was made a crime only if his parents were of Japanese birth. Had Korematsu been one of four -- the others being, say, a German alien enemy, an Italian alien enemy, and a citizen of American-born ancestors, convicted of treason but out on parole -- only Korematsu's presence would have violated the order.
The difference between their innocence and his crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, different than they, but only in that he was born of different racial stock. Roosevelt directed the military to isolate any citizen, if needed, from a mile-wide coastal area from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. Korematsu was arrested for going into hiding in Northern California after refusing to go to an internment camp.
Korematsu appealed his conviction through the legal system, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in October The court had heard a similar case in , Hirabayashi v. United States, and decided that Gordon Hirabayashi, a college student, was guilty of violating a curfew order.
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