Decades of discrimination: national crisis has often ushered in massive suspensions of civil rights.

There is a pattern here, immigrants have been unjustifiably and illegally targeted by the U.S. government in response to national crises across the decades. Exploring the similarities between three events--the Palmer Raids, Japanese internment, and the current "war on terrorism"--reveals how responses to a national crisis can often precipitate massive suspensions of civil rights. Historians have consistently critiqued both the Palmer Raids and Japanese internment as unwaranted, anti-immigrant, racist, and illegal. But how closely is the "war on terrorism" following the patterns of the past?

On June 2, 1919, a series of bombs exploded across eight American cities. In response to the bombings, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered a massive roundup and detention of all suspected "alien reds." Thinking chat members of anarchist, communist, and socialist groups were responsible for the bombings, Palmer authorized the massive roundup of Russian and Eastern European immigrants. Without being charged with any crime, thousands were detained, held in secret, denied bail, and denied access to lawyers. Although not one person was connected to the June 2 bombings, hundreds were eventually deported without trials.

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. In response co the attack, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the military to begin interning Japanese American citizens and immigrants. Without being charged with any crime, 120,000 Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and placed in makeshift internment camps for the duration of World War II. No Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage or aiding the Japanese government during World War II.

In response to the attack on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government quickly broadened the powers of the Department of Justice and began detaining and questioning thousands of immigrants from Arab or Muslim countries. Today, Attorney General John Ashcroft is calling for expanding powers of the PATRIOT Act in order to fight the "war on terrorism." Already Ashcroft's discriminatory policies have unjustly impacted hundreds of thousands of immigrants and people of color.

PALMER RAIDS OF 1919                 JAPANESE INTERNMENT

GOVERNMENT POLICY USED               GOVERNMENT POLICY USED

* Sedition Act (1918)                * Immigration and Nationality Act
                                       (1940)
* Deportation Act (1918)
                                     * Alien Registration Act (1940)
* Espionage Act (1917)
                                     NEW POLICIES PROPOSED & ENACTED
NEW POLICIES PROPOSED & ENACTED
                                     * Attorney General Biddle
* Davey Bill: Called for the           authorized raids without a
  immediate deportation of any         search warrant on the homes of
  alien convicted of actions or        people of Japanese descent.
  speech against the U.S.
  government and for the             * Executive Order 9066 broadly
  denaturalization of any              extended powers of military to
  naturalized citizen convicted of     round up and detain "any and all
  sedition.                            persons" from designated areas
                                       of the country as necessary for
* Over 52 bills targeting              national security.
  political radicals proposed by
  U.S. Legislators.

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ACTIONS         GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ACTIONS

* Police/FBI raids on suspected      * FBI rounded up and detained
  "alien reds."                        "selected" Japanese aliens.

* More than 10,000 arrested          * Over 120,000 persons of Japanese
  without being charged with any       descent interned without being
  crime. Government kept names of      charged with any crime.
  detainees secret amd expedited
  the deportation process. Palmer    * Alien Enemy Identification
  called for increased deportation     Program monitored suspected
  of "red."                            populations of Japanese, German,
                                       and Italian immigrants. Any
* Palmer claimed over 300,000          alien who failed to register
  "alien reds" existed in U.S. and     with the government could be
  must be questioned by U.S.           imprisoned.
  intelligence and security
  officials.

TREATMENT OF DETAINEES               TREATMENT OF DETAINEES

(Palmer Raid detainees) were held    Inside the camp, we had the sense
in unconscionable conditions,        that America was outside the
interrogated incommunicado, and in   fence, and America was a dangerous
some cases tortured.                 place. Sometimes people say, 'It
                                     wasn't that bad.' But it was that
--David Cole, professor,             bad. It was something that bad.'
Georgetown University                But it was 1942 nobody did
                                     anything about it. We were out
                                     there on our own.

                                     --John Tateishi director,
                                     Japanese American Citizens League

DEPORTATION                          DEPORTATION

* More than 500 people without any   * Over 4,724 people without any
  connections to the bombings were     connections to espionage were
  deported.                            deported.

LEVEL OF PUBLIC SUPPORT              LEVEL OF PUBLIC SUPPORT

* Despite the initial public         * Bent on the idea of wartime
  support for the Palmer Raids,        necessity and propelled by
  opposition began to build when       racial hysteria, most Americans
  continued violence Palmer warned     supported the internment. The
  about never materialized.            U.S. Supreme Court twice upheld
  Palmer's demands for increased       the legitimacy of the internment
  power also, ultimately               and deemed wartime incarceration
  diminished the elvel of public       based on race constitutional.
  support.

WHAT THE RECORD SAYS                 WHAT THE RECORD SAYS

* Historians generally contend       * Not a single incident of
  that the raids were unwarranted,     espionage or treason was found
  anti-immigrant, and fueled by        to be committed by Japanese
  the political motivations of         Americans throughout the course
  Attorney General Palmer and by       of World War II.
  public hysteria stemming from
  Palmer's edicts. The raids are
  characterized as an illegal        * In 1988, the U.S. government
  usurpation of government             offered a formal apology to all
  authority.                           Japanese Americans, stating:
                                       "Executive Order 9066 was not
                                       justified by military necessity.
                                       The broad historical causes
                                       which shaped these decisions
                                       were race prejudice, war
                                       hysteria, and a failure of
                                       political leadership. A grave
                                       injustice was done to American
                                       citizens and resident aliens of
                                       Japanese ancestry."

POST-SEPTEMBER 11th

GOVERNMENT POLICY USED

* Illegal Immigration Reform and
  Immigrant Responsibility Act
  (1996)

* Anti-Terrorism and Effective
  Death Penalty Act (1996)

NEW POLICIES PROPOSED & ENACTED

* Establishment of Department of
  Homeland Security.

* PATRIOT Act 1 (2001) broadly
  extended powers of government
  conduct searches, conduct
  surveillance and detain
  suspected terrorists without
  due Process.

* PATRIOT Act II proposes to
  extends powers of

* PATRIOT Act I and calls for the
  denaturalization of any citizen
  with connections to suspected
  terrorist groups.

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ACTIONS

* INS/FBI raids on suspected
  "terrorists," targets business
  owned immigrants, and monitors
  mosques.

* Over 1,200 detained without
  being chargred with any crime.
  Currently, the exact number of
  detainees is unknown due to
  government secrecy.

* INS claims over 314,000
  immigrants have outstanding
  orders of deportation and begins
  the Alien Absconders Apprehension
  Initiative.

* Ashcroft orders over 82,000
  immigrants from 22y countries to
  special registration with
  government.

TREATMENT OF DETAINEES

I have now been in solitary
confinement for three and a half
months. If it hadn't been for the
Koran and prayer, would have lost
mymind or had a nervous
breakdown ... Why am I imprisoned?
Why in solitary confinement? And
why under maximum security
measures? I have many questions
and no answers have many questions
and no answer. What are they
accusing me of? Nobody knows.

--Letter from a detainee in the
Metropolitan Detention Center

DEPORTATION

* More than 13,000 people without
  any connections to terrorist
  organizations were deported and
  this number is growing. (Since
  the 1996 immigration overhaul,
  more than 1 million people from
  over 120 countries have been
  deported by the U.S. government.)

LEVEL OF PUBLIC SUPPORT

* According to a Fox News/Opinion
  Dynamics survey conducted in
  February 2003, 71 percent of
  Americans approve of the job the
  government is doing protecting
  the country from terrorism, and
  only 19 percent disapprove.

WHAT THE RECORD SAYS

* None of the thousands of
  people detained or questioned
  in response to September 11
  have been convicted on
  terrorism charges.

A government that is supposed to
be protecting us has terrified the
very heart of everything I hold
dear.

--Theresa Allyn, student whose
  mother was deported in January
  2003

Sources: Amnesty Now, ACLU,-Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Internationl,
Families for Freedom, The New york Times articles, Smithsoniam
Institued.

Photos: Fred, Askew, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division.

Renee Willette is a research associate at the Applied Research Center.