Fred Korematsu's Involvement In The US

During World War II, a time of confusion and fear settled around America. Previously respected and average everyday citizens became feared and outcast by most people in the United States. “All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure (Justice Hugo Black).” The government declared that all the people of Japanese descent living along the Pacific coast be sent to live in concentration camps where the living arrangements were not the most pleasant and were overcrowded. President Franklin D Roosevelt issued and Executive Order that gave legislative power to the Secretary of War and Military Commander, allowing them to lock up any citizen of Japanese descent in whatever manner they deemed fit. This order, as the president of the United State, led to the internment of over 100,000 people who had their rights ripped out from under them, based on the idea that they “could be a spy or trying to sabotage our country”. However, not all Japanese-Americans took kindly to this intrusion of their basic liberties. For example, Fred Korematsu refused to go to the
While, yes he did defy the government, the government was acting in a way that was discriminatory against an innocent group of people and the arrest of Fred Korematsu was unwarranted. The Supreme Court’s actions and declaration that the internment of the Japanese-Americans was “constitutional” caused an extreme injustice among the people that it harmed. The fact that he was sent to a concentration camp purely on his race alone was unconstitutional and Justice Owen Roberts that if this assumption is correct “I need hardly labor the conclusion that Constitutional rights have been violated.” It was, and is, clear that any such orders go against the very premise that the United States of America is built