Today we honor Fred Korematsu, who challenged the constitutionality of Japanese-American internment during WW2. “The court ruled in favor of the government and against Korematsu in what is now widely considered one of its worst decisions.” https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/30/512488821/its-fred-korematsu-day-celebrating-a-foe-of-u-s-internment-camps
He was arrested and convicted for refusing to be relocated. Later he received a pardon but said,
"If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the one pardoning the government for what they did to the Japanese-American people."
"If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the one pardoning the government for what they did to the Japanese-American people."
The Korematsu decision "belongs to what legal scholars describe as the anti-canon of American constitutional law — a small group of Supreme Court rulings universally assailed as wrong, immoral, and unconstitutional.”
In times of fear and crisis, we have a tendency towards actions that take people’s fundamental rights from them. Internment is still in our living memory in the US. I hope we never forget its lessons.