Was The Internment Of The Japanese Justified?

📌Category: Human rights, Japan, Law, Social Issues, World
📌Words: 876
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 22 June 2021

"No person shall be denied of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law" (Constitution 1789) yet every single one of the Japanese had their life, liberty and property taken away without any process of law. On December 7th, 1941 the US had gotten a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Many US citizens started to not trust the Japanese anymore, not even the ones in their own country. The citizens of the US had started to spread the idea that we shouldn’t trust the Japanese anymore. Then finally, in February of 1942, President Roosevelt had made an executive order to put the Japanese into internment camps to make sure none of them were spies or against the US in any type of way. With this in mind, was the internment of the Japanese truly justified? The answer is no. The internment was completely unjust. According to many pieces of evidence such as the internment being illegal and that it was mainly racial based against the Japanese showing how unjust this really was. 

Essentially with this in mind, one of the main reasons why the Japanese internment was unjust is because of it being illegal. For example, as written on the fifth and fourteenth amendment of the constitution it states that nobody can be deprived of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law (1789).  This shows that it is illegal to lock down Japanese people because they do not have a property that has been destroyed and locked up after due legal process. This event is like being trapped in a fly jar with no holes because the fly slowly loses air as they are trapped which is their life. This connects to the Japanese being trapped because they are locked up from their homes and jobs which is eventually all gone because they get fired and their houses get trashed and that is their essentials to live like a fly needing air. Without a chance to even have their right to due process of law they all had their lives completely taken away. Based off of this evidence above it really shows a deeper understanding to why the internment camps were illegal because of the reason that most of them were American and had the same rights of everyone else that cannot be taken away because they have a different ancestry than others. 

Besides the reason of the internment camps being illegal, another reason why this was unjust is because of the fact it was racist and causing fear against the Japanese. According to the New York times headlines most if not all of them had raised fear and suspicion against the Japanese Americans. An example of one of these headlines is "Japan pictured as a nation of spies" This is like the phrase "one bad apple spoils the bunch" because this is saying all Japanese are bad based off a few of the Japanese's bad discissions. And after a closer look at this headline clearly promotes fear against the Japanese and it is calling every single Japanese, American or not, a spy and that all Japanese come from a nation of spies. Not to mention the hundreds of other headlines throughout the newspapers that promoted fear and racism against the Japanese. So these headlines further prove that the Japanese internment was based off racism and raised fear against Japanese because not only this headline, but many more had been raising fear and suspicion of the Japanese trying to make it seem justified to intern them when really most if not all of these Japanese had done absolutely nothing to pose a threat to this country. Based off the evidence this can clearly show the promotion of fear against Japanese. In fact, many of the headlines that had stated that the Japanese were just bad and no matter what. Even if they live or were born in the U.S that their race is just bad and poses a real threat to the U.S when in reality, they had no threat towards the U.S at all. 

 Critics like people who argue that the internment of Japanese citizens was justified because Article 2 Section 2 states internment was legal when it states that the constitution gives the power to the president to issue orders necessary such as exclusion and separation of certain groups movement (constitution 1789). However, the facts are that the Japanese internment was illegal because in the 5th and 14th (Constitution 1789) amendment it states how all citizens no matter what have the right to life, liberty, or property without the due process of law in which none of the Japanese received even though they had lost their life, their freedom, and their property. This clearly shows that the internment of the Japanese was illegal because all of the Japanese Americans had lost many of their rights and freedoms which should no matter what be protected by the constitution, not taken away by the constitution. After all the constitution was made to protect citizens rights, not take them away. This proves that it was illegal and definitely not legal because it took away the whole meaning of the constitutional amendments and took away not only the Japanese American rights, and the due process of law which the constitution protects.  Based off the evidence above, there is clear mistakes made by interning the Japanese. Many reasons such as illegality, fascism, and fear. No matter what the time is, there are rights that cannot be taken away and freedom is definitely one of these rights especially being none of the Japanese had their right to due process making these internments completely unjust. 

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