War!
Although the U.S. did not enter the war until December 8, 1941, officials in FDR’s government had been drawing up lists of “suspicious aliens” for possible arrest when and if America joined the Allied forces since 1939. That year J. Edgar Hoover’s agents began collecting information on non-citizens suspected of sympathizing with Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.
Once again, this is an example of people who were being identified because they “might” be sympathizers. These individuals had not committed any crime. More troubling is the list of American citizens “sympathetic” to Germany and Italy. There were over 4000 individuals who would be considered for detention.
The Immigration Service had been moved from the Labor Department to the Justice Department, giving Hoover the authority to detain and deport aliens. The day after Pearl Harbor, the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) sent Hoover “a list of individuals ‘considered for custodial detention’ because of their views about Germany and Italy.” (page 351) The list included American citizens.
On December 8, the order came to Hoover from the attorney general to arrest “alien enemies who are natives, citizens, denizens of subjects of Germany,” even though the U.S. was not yet at war with Germany. The arrests began on December 9 and included hundreds of German, Italian and Japanese enemy aliens.
As with the detentions and deportations during WWI and the Red Scare, these arrests raise questions about how government balances civil liberties against security concerns. Did officials take reasonable steps that were in the best interests of United States citizens, or did they overstep and abridge individual rights?
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1 comments:
In hindsight it is easier to see what should have happened. I don't think now that bringing Germans and Italians to Ellis Island was the best way to deal with this issue. However, I can understand how this happened. The country had entered a World War and was trying to protect itself from possible traditors living in our midst. I don't remember ever learning about this in my American history classses. I hope more Americans will read "American Passages" and learn about what happened at Ellis Island during this period. This is a lesson from the past that could help with how we handle immigration issues today.
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