The Internment of Japanese Americans Was Not Justified
December 7, 1941 was a turning point in American history; it was the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. The following day, December 8, 1941, was the day the United States officially joined World War II. The United States took precautionary steps and ordered thousands of Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to barbed wire-enclosed internment camps (Dudley 116). According to Frank Murphy, Michigan governor and U.S. attorney general, these actions were inhumane (Dudley 117). The Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 violated constitutional rights, discriminated against race, and was deliberate in releasing Japanese Americans (Dudley 118).
Without the declaration of martial law, the United States forced Japanese Americans out of their homes. This, in effect, deprived these citizens from the equal protection of the law given by the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment states that a person can not be held responsible for a crime committed without just cause, or habeas corpus. Governor Murphy states, “This racial restriction...is one of the most sweeping and complete deprivations of constitutional rights in
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According to Frank Murphy, “...in the Commanding General’s Final Report on the evacuation from the Pacific Coast area he refers to all individuals of Japanese descent as ‘subversive,’ as belonging to ‘an enemy race’ whose ‘racial strains are undiluted,’and as constituting ‘over 112,000 potential enemies...at large today’ along the Pacific Coast.” This justification was solely based on questionable opinion, and not reasonable cause or facts. Most of the people who supported the move of Japanese Americans into internment camps had reasons that were full of misinformation, only half the truth, and were based off personal racial and social prejudice (Dudley