It ’s an unthinkable scenario , but it ’s befall meter and time again : People born in the United States are regale as national security threats . In former 2018 , for deterrent example , The Washington Postreported on the story of Peter Sean Brown , a Philadelphia - bear citizen who says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) held him for deportation to Jamaica . The same article cited a2013 Syracuse University studythat determined ICE had pose detainers on 834 U.S. citizen over just a four - year point .
And while meth - related incidents have made newspaper headline in our post-9/11 society , the issue at warmheartedness has recurred throughout the country ’s story . Case in point : the incarceration of Mitsuye Endo . Born in Sacramento , California , in 1920 , Endo was one of four children conduct to Nipponese immigrants . In her other XX , Endo worked as a secretary for the state ’s Department of Employment .
Post-Pearl Harbor
But life as Endo knew it changed dramatically on Dec. 7 , 1941 — the day Japan attackedPearl Harbor . Within a few months , the U.S. dismissed all Japanese - American State Department employees , including Endo . Of the hundreds of employees bear upon , 63 banded together to challenge the firing . back by the Japanese American Citizens League ( JACL ) , Endo and her peers hired attorney James C. Purcell to defend their right .
But fighting against the prevailing classic rule was n’t easy , and as Purcell take on the case , consideration keep to worsen for Japanese Americans . In fact , at the order of magnitude of President Franklin D. Roosevelt , more than 120,000 Japanese Americanswere forcibly relocate and put away . Along with her family , Endo was sent first to the Sacramento Assembly Center and then to the Tule Lake , California internment camp .
" I wish hoi polloi be intimate more about Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi and her attorney , James Purcell , " say University of California Berkeley School of Law professor , Amanda L. Tyler . " They are both extraordinary figures . " Tyler has compose extensively about Endo , both in her rule book , " Habeas Corpus in Wartime : From the Tower of London to Guantanamo Bay , " and in a 2016 op - male erecticle dysfunction for The Sacramento Bee titled , " Unsung WWII hero deserves the Medal of Freedom . " " Ms. Endo was summarily fired from her job as a California State employee , forced to depart her home , post to two different impoundment camps , eventually fork from her parents , and all the while her brother was serving in the United States military , " Tyler says .
Executive Order 9066
Roosevelt ’s extreme cadence is known asExecutive Order 9066 , a World War II insurance policy that prescribed " regulations for the doings and ascendency of alien enemy . " As Purcell built a case against the government ’s action , he begin searching for a complainant to dispute the incarceration through a habeas corpus petition .
Dating back to 1215,habeas corpusis a judicature order that empowers individuals ( and/or those representing them ) to gainsay the legality of their internment . Purcell decided Endo was an idealistic candidate — not only was she a Methodist citizen with a blood brother in the U.S. Army , but she ’d never evenbeento Japan . While she initially hesitate to playact as complainant , Endo finally check , and Purcell filed the request on July 12 , 1942 , in a San Francisco Union district lawcourt .
" During the line of her case , the governing realized that it posed a serious challenge to all the policies manoeuver at persons of Nipponese ancestry that the military instituted under the aegis of Executive Order 9066 , " Tyler excuse . " So the government pop the question her release in social club to make her character effectively go by . " The circumstances were n’t sufficient for Endo , however , who did n’t feel her own freedom was the ideal termination in a much gravid societal issuing . " She defy , in her words , because ' [ t]he fact that I want to testify that we of Japanese ancestry were not guilty of any law-breaking and that we were loyal American citizen maintain me from abandon the suit , ' " Tyler says .
The Supreme Court
Endo stay in childbed for month as her case progressed . When iteventually reached the Supreme Courtin April 1944 , the Courtunanimously ruled in party favor of Endo , stating that " the governing can not detain a citizen without charge when the government itself concede she is loyal to the United States . " While Endo ’s steadfast allegiance to the larger cause was surely cardinal to the eventual outcome , Tyler credits Purcell for his untiring efforts . " He agnise the serious constitutional problem with what the government was doing and he felt compelled to use his acquisition to give a voice to a biotic community that was below the belt direct and unconstitutionally treated during the state of war , " she says . " I have hear many survivors of the camps refer to Mr. Purcell as ' the gentleman’s gentleman who set us free . ' "
accord to Tyler , the case has go away more of a ethnic legacy than a effectual one . " Endo ’s case is not so significant for the precedent that it countersink , because it was decided very narrowly on non - constitutional grounds , but it is instead enormously pregnant for being the ram military group behind the closedown of the Japanese - American poundage camps , " she says . " In the track up to the conclusion come down , President Roosevelt had resisted insistency from advisers to close up the camps . After the 1944 election and upon supposedly being bung off that the Supreme Court was going to decide in favor of Endo ’s claim that she could not be detain in the camps as a concededly truehearted citizen , the administration modify naturally and proclaim that it would begin shut down the refugee camp . The Clarence Day after build that announcement , the Supreme Court handed down its conclusion in Ex parte Endo . "
How It Applies Today
" The larger relevance of all the Nipponese American vitrine that went before the Supreme Court during World War II , to my mind , is that they show how dangerous compliancy to the executive in wartime can be , " Tyler says , referring to theongoing argumentover whether the judiciary offshoot of governance ( theSupreme Courtand other federal courts ) should yield all decisions about interior surety to the executive branch ( the president , vice chairperson and cabinet ) .
In a2018 USA Today op - ed , Tyler referred to Japanese American internment as a " cautionary tale " for President Trump ’s proposed travel prohibition . " This connects to modern day because it means that the Court should be hesitating to defer to the executive with respect to assertion about the needs of national security as a cover matter . "
To underscore her level , Tyler refers to the Supreme Court ’s decisiveness last year tooverturn the 1944 rulingin the casing of Korematsu v. United States , in which American citizen Fred Korematsu refused to go forth the West Coast following President Roosevelt ’s executive order and was later convict of disobeying a military club . While the ruling was technicallyoverruled in " dicta,“meaning it may hold more symbolical value than actionable impact , Tyler articulate it ’s still a meaningful move .
" Had the Court in Korematsu , among other eccentric , actually asked to see a factual basis substantiate the need for the policies that were put in place by the military under Executive Order 9066 , the government could not have provided any evidence , " she says . " This fact and the Court ’s recent overruling of Korematsu — albeit in obiter dictum — should give break to any court run to take the executive at its parole when individual rightfield are at stake . "
