Should congress have vetoed the president's decision to use internment camps in the U.S. during WWII?

Question

Do you think the other branches of Government should have stopped the use of internment camps on citizens of japanese decent during World War 2? Was it worth it to keep a possible disaster from happening? Or racial descrimination and paranoya going to far?

i guess your right we can't know the fear this country felt during that time after pearl harbor.

Answer 1

You would have had to have been there when Pearl Harbor occurred. The Congress agreed with those decisions.

The entire country was shaken beyond belief. Ya, it could be called paranoia and a terrible mistake, but, never had the US been so treacherously attacked, even while Japanese negotiators were in Washington.

You might be interested in knowing that 1,000,000 Italians were rounded up.

Less than 1% were deported.

My family had a,German born, family doctor, a US citizen, for about 20 years. He was picked up in 1941 as a spy.

I went to school with kids from two German families.
Both were spies and picked up 1941-42.

Paranoia? Call it what you will, it was a scary time, with
U-boats off our shores, blackouts when we had to turn off our lights. Censored mail, (received with holes in the letters), few groups of people gathering on streets. It was all considered suspicious.

How will one your age ever understand? And I hope you never experience it.

Answer 2

The internment of U.S. citizens based soley upon their heritage is one of the largest black marks on all of U.S. history (slavery and the systematic genocide of the Native Americans being perhaps the only two worse things). This was never the right thing to do, not just in retrospect.

Yes, congress should have tried to stop it, but then so should have the American people.

Answer 3

In hindsight, yes. But that's easy to say now, isn't it?