Trump would twist unjust law; Congress should repeal it

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Katherine Yon Ebright / For the Chicago Tribune

President-elect Donald Trump is getting ready to repeat a shameful mistake from our nation’s history. As part of his plans for mass deportation, Trump has promised to dust off the Alien Enemies Act, last used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in World War II to hold 31,000 noncitizens of Japanese, German and Italian descent in internment camps based on their ancestry.

Trump and his advisers claim that the same law would permit the detention and deportation of millions of noncitizens currently in the United States. Congress and the courts can and should stop him.

Enacted in 1798, the Alien Enemies Act allows the president, during a declared war or an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” by a foreign government, to summarily detain and deport noncitizens who were born in enemy nations.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, which killed more than 2,400 Americans, opened the door for Roosevelt to proclaim an invasion and invoke the law. Within 24 hours, more than 1,000 noncitizens of Japanese descent had been detained. Many more would follow; along with an even larger number of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, detained under a separate legal authority.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-trump-would-twist-unjust-law-congress-should-repeal-it/

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Related: Trump v. Hawaii

Trump v. Hawaii

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Supreme Court

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Korematsu
Part of the majority's decision referenced Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), which upheld the constitutionality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order forcing Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps during World War II. The dissenting opinions in Trump mentioned Korematsu, leading Roberts to write, "[t]he dissent's reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and – to be clear – 'has no place in law under the Constitution'" (citing Justice Robert H. Jackson's dissent from Korematsu). Scholars disagree about whether this statement "constitutes an actual overturning of Korematsu or merely disapproving dictum" of it.

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