Bay Area Japanese Americans Condemn Trump’s Use of Alien Enemies Act

More than 70 passionate community members, activists and organizational leaders gathered at the Japanese Cultural Community Center of Northern California in San Francisco’s Japantown to rebuke the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 by President Donald Trump.

The room buzzed with a sense of urgency after Trump invoked the centuries-old law to deport more than 200 people with alleged ties to a notorious Venezuelan gang last week.

For many at the cultural center on Thursday, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown carried troubling echoes of history. The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked was 84 years ago, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The act, which led to the detention of Japanese, German and Italian nationals, was the precursor to the incarceration of over 120,000 people with Japanese ancestry during World War II.

It authorized then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt to detain any Japanese national who was suspected of sabotage or espionage and allowed the FBI to raid Japanese homes and businesses.

“In 1941, our religious leaders, our community leaders, our school teachers were branded criminals,” Jon Osaki, executive director of the Japanese Community Youth Council, said at the event. “We need to make sure that those who are targeted in this country right now know that there are people who support them and are looking out for them.”

In the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration, many Bay Area Japanese American community members had been on edge, fearing he would follow through on his campaign promise to resurrect the dormant law — which has been used only three times during wartime — as a tool for mass deportation.

A week ago, those fears became reality. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to justify removing alleged Venezuelan gang members, likening them to a foreign invasion despite a federal court order to halt the deportations and the use of wartime powers.

Now, Japanese American community members say the stakes couldn’t be any clearer.

“We’re no longer in the place where we’re bracing,” Carl Takei of the Asian Law Caucus, told KQED. “This is the point where fundamental aspects of our freedoms are very clearly at risk.”

A panel that included representatives from social justice organizations such as Tsuru for Solidarity, Chinese for Affirmative Action and the San Francisco Labor Council drew parallels between Trump’s anti-immigration policies and the injustices Japanese Americans endured years ago.

Some audience members were moved to tears. Others cheered as speakers urged people to take action.

Mano Raju, one of the panelists and San Francisco’s Public Defender, underscored the troubling scope of Trump’s power grab. By invoking the Alien Enemies Act, he asserted, Trump had effectively stripped immigrants of their right to due process — critical protections for anyone accused of criminal activity.

“Some of the people — who were essentially kidnapped by the U.S. government and shipped off to El Salvador in violation of a federal court order — have pending civil court dates in order to obtain their immigration status,” Raju said.

Having represented individuals accused of gang affiliation, Raju called the mass deportations without a day in court “terrifying and outrageous.”

“If I were representing any of those individuals, I would actually be digging deep to understand the dynamics of who they are, and I bet you a lot of times we’re going to find that these allegations against them are actually not true,” Raju told KQED.

Takei noted the chilling similarities between the deportations and the targeting of Japanese immigrants during World War II.

“These initial roundups of Japanese immigrants who were not U.S. citizens were based on very thin evidence,” said Takei, who shared how the FBI targeted his great-grandfather for speaking to civilian ship captains who were mistaken for Japanese naval officials.

Takei said last weekend’s deportations could be the first step in a dangerous progression that mirrors the blueprint of the gradual expansion of arrests and detentions during World War II.

“The first stage is the one that looks very much like what is happening right now — that is the roundups of the Issei (immigrant) generation on the basis of the Alien Enemies invocation, and the phase that came after that was a much bigger roundup of everybody, citizens and noncitizens alike,” he said.

That second phase came when Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. A majority of the Japanese people sent to prison camps were American citizens.

“Knowing that progression took place during World War II is one of the reasons why Japanese Americans are so angered and afraid by what is going on right now,” said Takei, who warned that if the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act stands in the courts, the implications could be serious for other immigrant groups since it blurs the line between state and non-state actors who can be deemed an invasive enemy of the U.S.

Derrlyn Tom, a resident of San Francisco’s Mission District, said she attended the meeting because she wants to be an ally to vulnerable immigrant groups. She said that sense of responsibility came from her time as a science teacher at Mission High School, where she taught for over 25 years, and the majority of the student population was Latino. Many students were refugees and had minimal connections or access to resources.

Tom told KQED that she also attended to connect more deeply with her Japanese heritage by witnessing how the Japanese American community was mobilizing on behalf of others.

“I feel it’s an honor to just be here, to see that this is happening,” Tom, 67, said. “I feel like I can and should be proud of this.”

Rev. Deborah Lee of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity emphasized that Japanese Americans speaking up now will be crucial to resisting the Trump administration’s efforts to upend the nation’s immigration system.

“Their history is a marker on the U.S. It’s one of the few times the United States has ever admitted doing wrong and apologized,” Lee said. “It’s so powerful to see the way they’re using their experience. Each community in the United States has some piece of the story.”

Satsuki Ina, co-founder of Tsuru for Solidarity, a group that seeks to eliminate detention centers, said Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act should be a last-straw moment for Japanese Americans, a wake-up call to speak out on behalf of others facing the same fate their families once did — and to be the kind of allies that the Japanese community needed and did not have during World War II.

In recent weeks, she said, Japanese American community members, including elderly survivors of World War II incarceration, have increasingly stepped forward to resist Trump’s immigration policies. Some have joined her group and are participating in know-your-rights training to take action, such as serving as witnesses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

Her co-founder, Mike Ishii, echoed that call to resistance, emphasizing that standing up against injustice is a long-standing tradition in the Japanese American community.

“This moment may feel especially fraught with anxiety, but our community has risen to the occasion many times,” he said. “We are strong, powerful, loving and resilient people. And you should not make us angry. Because when our righteous indignation is activated, we become a force to be reckoned with.”