Tsuru for Solidarity forcefully condemns the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA) as a pretext to silence, sequester, and give the state power to strip people of their human rights. Behind these actions is an intent to ethnically cleanse the nation of immigrants of color, invoking false narratives of “unassimilable aliens” and “threats to national security,” the exact language used to target and dehumanize Japanese immigrants and citizens during WWII.  

Invocation of this law is an assault on the core freedoms we value as Americans and an attempt to drag us back to one of the darkest chapters of our history: the forced removal and mass incarceration of over 125,000 Japanese immigrants and U.S. citizens in U.S. concentration camps. 

Detention sites are cruel places that always lack oversight, accountability and moral leadership. History has shown that when governments imprison people in places like the Tule Lake Segregation Center or Guantanamo, people are inevitably denied their rights and heinous crimes against humanity take place. We are witnessing a potential human catastrophe of epic proportions unfold in real time.

Cruel, unjust laws like the AEA are used as moral justification for establishing an authoritarian state. Trump is seizing and sending whomever he dislikes wherever a fellow dictator will accept them. His targeting of Palestinian and immigrant rights organizers is a lawless and authoritarian move to silence political dissent, opening the door to imprison anyone they see as a threat to their agenda. His weaponization of multiple branches of government threatens to overturn the rule of law and civil society. The MAGA regime is further empowering a cruel and violent immigration prison system that is already guilty of horrific state violence including torture, solitary confinement, sexual assaults on prisoners, denial of medical care and separation of families. 

As the community last targeted by this unjust law, Japanese Americans are outraged that it is once again being used to establish an international network of violent and inhumane detention sites that exist outside of and defy the rule of law and international norms of human rights.  

Now is the time for every person who values the rights and dignity of all people to unite and fiercely defend our neighbors.  We must speak out, show up and stand with all who are targeted in this moment.  We can be the allies that our people needed during WWII when the FBI was conducting raids and removing our leaders and imprisoning our families in concentration camps. 

Only by standing boldly together can we safeguard our freedoms, protect our families, and reclaim our future from those determined to dominate us.