Imprisoning undocumented immigrants isn't 'national security' – it's cruelty
Imprisoning undocumented immigrants isn't 'national security' – it's cruelty
These detentions seem to be a repeat of the Japanese American internment camps – an ugly part of US history
Dale Minami and Karen Korematsu
Monday 29 June 2015 07.30 EDT Last modified on Monday 29 June 2015 08.18 EDT
As Japanese Americans whose relatives were imprisoned as “national security threats” during World War II, we were shocked to learn that the Obama administration is contracting with private prison companies to imprison thousands of mothers and children from Central America in detention camps. This, after these families fled some of the most violent countries in the world to apply for asylum in the United States.
After visiting one of these family detention facilities, a descendant of incarcerated Japanese Americans described the place as feeling like “an updated version” of the World War II prison camps. The Japanese American Citizens League has stated that the organization is “deeply troubled by the chilling similarities between the confinement of women and children in places such as Dilley and Karnes, and the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans at places such as Manzanar, Heart Mountain and Tule Lake.”
We too have been struck by the many similarities between the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II and the detention of Central American families today without any hearing or right to counsel, and how closely these detentions seem to be repeating an ugly part of US history which hit especially close to the bone for us, the daughter and friend of Fred Korematsu.
In 1942, the 23-year-old Californian defied post Pearl Harbor presidential orders to surrender for “evacuation and internment” just because he was Japanese American. Arrested by the government and then convicted for failing to obey the military orders aimed at people of Japanese descent, Korematsu appealed to the US supreme court, positing the unconstitutionality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. He lost his case, Korematsu v United States, and remained imprisoned until the end of the war.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/29/imprisoning-undocumented-immigrants-isnt-national-security-its-cruelty
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