I don't see how Japanese internment wasn't immoral; it literally criminalized existence - the existence of being of an American with Japanese descent. That's a fundamental, immora misapplication of government power.
Very few ethnic Japanese living in Hawaii, which are the largest Japanese population in the US, were not sent to internment camps. Japanese internment was a temporary suspension of civil liberties for people who were considered to be a potential threat (whether or not they were culpable for that threat, because at the time, anti-Japanese sentiment was understandably high) to national security and public order, partly due to their potential to be compromised by an enemy nation, which was Japan. Some ethnic Japanese Americans were affected by this policy, and some were not, depending on where they lived.
The policy was regrettable and worthy of the apology and financial reparations that were given to them, but it is inaccurate to say it was purely racially-motivated, and I don't see what good it does to assume that it was done with immoral intentions, especially in the context of the original post.
Few Japanese in the Hawaiian territories were interned because they were 35% of the population of the island - so it was impractical and also they had many industrialists argue on their behalf.
Except it
was racially-motivated, FDR joked about not caring about Italians in the context onf internment:
I don’t care so much about the Italians, they are a lot of opera singers, but the Germans are different. They may be dangerous.”
Indigenous Aleuts and others in Alaska were also interned based on looking Japanese.
Some even with as little as 1/16 Japanese blood were interned as well as orphans.
I suspect a lot of people with 1/2 or 1/4 German or Italian blood were not questioned for their loyalty - as only several thousand Germans and Italians nationals were forcibly detained.
As for racial motivation here's Internment Administrator General John L De Witt's testimony before Congress:
Only $20,000 each was repaid to camp survivors - in 1988 over 40 years after the war. At the time they were given $25 and a train ticket to their original hometown many coming back to find their homes lost and businesses gone. That's absolute BS.
The reparations came too little, too late as the American Japanese Claims Act of 1948 had strict allowances for time limits and in the end only awarded $37 from a total $140M claimed by over 26,500 claimants who had lost property as a result of internment.
Finally, following a change in the attitudes of younger generations following the civil rights era there was noise for reparations. A symbolic gesture following investigations opened under Carter and signed to law under Reagan. Bush Sr appropriated an additional $400M to make sure that all survivors got their $20K and eventually they got that all paid by 1998.
A quote from Papa Bush:
"In remembering, it is important to come to grips with the past. No nation can fully understand itself or find its place in the world if it does not look with clear eyes at all the glories and disgraces of its past. We in the United States acknowledge such an injustice in our history. The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was
a great injustice, and it will never be repeated."
Tom C Clark former Supreme Court Justice - who worked at the DOJ at the time on the issue but was not involved in the decision process:
"The truth is—as this
deplorable experience proves—that constitutions and laws are not sufficient of themselves...Despite the unequivocal language of the Constitution of the United States that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, and despite the Fifth Amendment's command that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, both of these constitutional safeguards were denied by military action under Executive Order 9066."
To chalk it up as simply an 'unfortunate mistake' does a great disservice to many people.
Poll
