Establishes "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution"

• Democratic17
• Republican2

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Shelley Mayer says this is needed

In February 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into World War II, President Roosevelt issued an executive order permitting the U.S. military to "prescribe military areas ... from which any or all persons may be excluded."1 A subsequent executive order created the War Relocation Authority, whose mission was "to provide for the removal from designated areas of persons whose removal is necessary in the interests of national security."2 Lt. General John DeWitt, military commander of the Western Defense Command, issued a series of public proclamations establishing certain areas from which "(a)ny Japanese, German or Italian alien, or any person of Japanese ancestry" were restricted in their movements or excluded altogether.3 A series of civilian exclusion orders followed, directing that all persons of Japanese ancestry report to "civil control stations," to receive further instructions and transport to "their new residence."' While the United States was fighting in Europe and Asia to protect and defend democracy and freedom abroad, thousands of West Coast residents of Japanese descent, many of them citizens, were summoned on no more than a few days notice, and told to leave behind homes, businesses, possessions, and communities, and to report to central locations from which they were then sent to internment camps for the duration of the war. According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, over 120,000 persons of Japanese descent, 70,000 of whom were U.S. citizens, were forcibly moved to "assembly centers" and then sent to "relocation centers," located in remote areas in the western United States. (Despite this treatment, many enlisted or were drafted into the military and 30,000 Japanese Americans served with distinction during World War II.)5 Fred Korematsu, a son of Japanese immigrants, born in Oakland Califor- nia, refused to report for relocation. Having tried to enlist at the start of the war and been turned down, he worked as a welder, only to be fired due to his Japanese ancestry. When the rest of his family members were forcibly relocated to an internment camp, Mr. Korematsu stayed in California. Subsequently arrested, prosecuted, convicted in federal court of disobeying a military order, and sent to a relocation camp, Mr. Korematsu's appeal of his conviction made its way to the United States Supreme Court.6 In Korematsu v. United States, the Court upheld Mr. Korematsu's conviction and the related policy under which the U.S. government ordered that individuals, including American citizens, be excluded from their homes and communities, and be relocated and detained indefinitely purely on the basis of ethnic origin.' In dissenting from the Court's ruling, Justice Robert Jackson said: "Korematsu ... 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."8 Justice Frank Murphy called the exclusion order "the legalization of racism."' At the end of the war, upon release from internment, Fred Korematsu went on to rebuild his life, got married, had children, and became a civil rights activist, lobbying for redress of the wrongs done to Japanese-Am- ericans during World War II and doing what he could to ensure no such harms would befall others and that the U.S. government would not repeat past mistakes. Mr. Korematsu died on March 30, 2005. Mr. Korematsu's conviction was overturned in 1984 after his case was reopened on the basis of government misconduct. Thanks to his efforts as a member of the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, the U.S. Congress passed a bill granting a formal apology and token compensation to affected Japanese-Americans in 1988. However, the U.S. Supreme Court never officially overruled its determination in Korematsu v. United States that the policy under which Mr. Korematsu was arrested, prose- cuted, convicted, and inter

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.