JACL strongly condemns law used to incarcerate Japanese Americans and deport foreign nationals

SEATTLE TIMES

During the Day of Remembrance in February, Seattle's Japanese Americans reenact their community's WWII incarceration justified by the Alien Enemies Act.

Donald Trump dredged up awful memories for Japanese Americans when he used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged gang members to El Salvador.

That is the same law used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to imprison thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII. It is no wonder that the Japanese American Citizens League issued a strong response condemning Trump use of a wartime act that should be aboilished.

On March 15th, Donald Trumpinvoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, specifically targeting foreign nationals from Venezuela who are alleged members of the Trend de Aragua criminal organization. The Alien Enemies Act was last used to intern 31,000 Japanese, German, and Italian nationals during WWII.

"As the Japanese American community knows, the scope was expanded to include United States citizens through Executive Order 9066 leading to the incarceration of over 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry," said a statement from the JACL.

"We fear that the Venezuelan immigrant community is now being similarly targeted through the unlawful use and expansion of the Alien Enemies Act."

Trump's action is the fourth invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in the history of the United States, however, this is the only time outside of wartime. Under the newly signed Executive Order, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua”, any Venezuelan national over the age of 14, who is alleged to have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang is subject to be arrested, detained, and deported regardless of their immigration status."

Not only is this an unlawful use of the Alien Enemies Act, outside the scope of wartime, but is overly broad and can be used to target individuals with no proven connection to Tren de Agua except through their Venezuelan citizenship, the JACL emphasized.

Judge D.C. Chief District Judge James Boasberg intervened and issued a temporary restraining order to block the deportation of any individuals under the authority of this executive order and called for a plane carrying deportees to immediately return to the United States. In what would be especially egregious behavior, the Trump administration may have blatantly ignored the judge’s orders and carried out deportations on Saturday under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act.

Last February, Japanese Americans demonstrated outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma protesting the deportation policies  and actions of the Trump administration. 

The Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is unconstitutional and continues the deeply racist and xenophobic legacy of Japanese American incarceration during WWII. The danger of the Alien Enemies Acts is the power granted to the President to circumvent the constitutional rights to due process for immigrants under the guise of national security.

As it was revealed after World War II, Japanese Americans posed no security threat, and many Japanese Americans served with distinction to defeat the Axis powers, even as their families remained imprisoned behind barbed wire in American concentration camps.

"We call for the administration to comply fully with the temporary restraining order and halt any deportations under the proposed authority of the Alien Enemies Act. The alleged blatant disregard for Judge Boasberg’s orders to turn the plane carrying deportees around cannot be tolerated in a nation of laws," says the JACL. "The Alien Enemies Act cannot be invoked without a declaration of war, an act that only Congress can take. 

During the Day of Remembrance in February, northwestern Japanese Americans demonstrated at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Immigrant rights leader Maru Mora Villalpando of La Resistencia leads the crowd in chants of “Chinga la Migra!” and “Shut it down!”

Meanwhile, Boasberg and the DOJ have been jousting over the legality of the deportation process by the Trump administration. The legal question raised by the use of the Alien Enemies Act is whether the government can summarily deport people without an "individualized assessment of their status," Judge Boasberg said March 22, raising questions about due process for the migrants. He asked the government, "What happens if someone is not a member of Tren de Aragua or not a Venezuelan citizen or a U.S. citizen? How do they challenge their removal?" The DOJ did not issue a response.

Boasberg said the government can continue to deport immigrants, but it may not do so under the Alien Enemies Act. "It's important for the public to make sure those facts are clear," he said. He expressed concern that the proclamation was "essentially signed in the dark" on a Saturday and then the migrants were "rushed onto planes."

He asked whether the Trump administration had invoked the act quietly because it believes it to be problematic. TheDOJ declined to say more. Boasberg noted that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, "had advance notice of this proclamation because it's impossible this could have happened within two hours."

The JACL calls for Congress to pass the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, which would repeal the Alien Enemies Act to ensure that Trump or any other future President cannot abuse the law and further desecrate the Constitution.

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