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How Is Japanese Internment Justified

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About 77 years ago a tragic thing happened in the United States. On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. 2,500 men lost their lives and 1000 were wounded that day. The United States grew suspicious of the Japanese Americans being spies and quickly took action. The United States could do these actions because of suspend habeas corpus. Suspend habeas corpus means that someone being arrested doesn’t have to be brought before a judge because the public’s safety is in danger because of invasion or rebellion. The president at the time Franklin D Roosevelt signed an executive order that relocated Japanese Americans living along the West Coast to internment camps. The internment of Japanese Americans after the …show more content…

The internment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor was not justified because it was discriminatory. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States took high security measures and placed all Japanese Americans into internment camps. The United States argued that they did this strictly because they were at war with the Japanese Empire, but people think that the United States did this because of race. The United States feared fifth column activity which was a smaller group out a big rebel group. Harry Paxton Howard wrote the excerpt “Americans in Concentration Camps,” The Crisis in September of 1942. German and Italian Americans on the east coast were considered dangerous to the military because these countries were at war with the United States. This is similar to Japanese Americans being considered dangerous on the west coast. …show more content…

When the United States placed the Japanese Americans into camps they assumed that they were spies and were working with Japan. 350-400 people were placed into these camps even though only about 50-60 were actually harmful. They had no way of knowing who was actually dangerous to the United States. The Commission released “Personal Justice Denied: The Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians” on February 24, 1983. The actions which led to the United States placing the Japanese Americans into camps were race prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership. But another thing was the United States being so angry and fearful of the Japanese. So many awful things were put apon people of Japanese ancestry. The Commission wrote, “A grave injustice was done to American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any…evidence against them, were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II” (Document F). The Commission intended that a horrible mistake was made when Japanese Americans were placed into camps without any evidence against them. These people were just thrown out of their houses without any proof of them doing anything. Since there was no evidence found against the Japanese Americans there was no way of

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