Mae GilliganGreen GroupJapanese Internment Letter to the Editor

The year is 1943. As we fight to save the constitutional democracy we established 167 years ago, unconstitutional activities take place even on American soil. The American Constitution and Bill of Rights show explicitly that the internment of Japanese citizens on the West Coast is unconstitutional and facts show it to be unnecessary.According to the fifth amendment to the United States constitution, due process of law is required before the arrest or detainment of citizens of the United States. We are not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without it. Yet where is this due process now? Japanese Americans are being held against their will and deprived of liberty without trial. The fourth amendment states that citizens also have the right to safety from unreasonable seizures of person. What is more unreasonable than the rounding up of hundreds of model citizens to be sent away from their families and livelihoods?But you protest National security! Executive Order 9066 authorizes any military commander to exclude any person from any area. This should be meant to exclude criminals or spies from military bases, such as the ones in California. However, it is clearly directed at Japanese Americans. They are the only group to have been evicted from their homes, and this has only occurred on the West Coast. Your logic might be that They could pass information to the enemy! They could riot and destroy the military base! Yet Curtis B. Munson, a special investigator from the state department, reported in 1941 that the Japanese Americans possessed an extraordinary degree of loyalty to the United States. They are rarely in trouble with the police, and overall seem to be model citizens. If, at any rate, we do plan to incarcerate immigrants from the nations with which we are at war, I do not understand why we have yet to displace German immigrants, or Italian immigrants. They are just as at fault as the Japanese!That is all, and should be enough.