The Right Way to Lock Up Aliens

ON DECEMBER 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States government faced an array of internal enemies. These included aliens and Americans of German, Italian, and Japanese ancestry. The Roosevelt administration's handling of Japanese Americans--some 120,000 were sent to relocation camps--has become notorious, although few of those who expatiate on the topic nowadays know very much about it. For example, it is rarely mentioned that Japanese government-controlled Shinto religious temples in America were found to be subversive organizations, a precedent for possible investigation today of mosques financed by foreign governments.

Much less discussed is the government's internment and relocation of Germans and Italians. At the outset of the war, U.S. authorities made judicious use of a custodial detention list already compiled by the FBI. About 5,000 German aliens and 250 Italian aliens were interned during the war, mainly pro-Axis agitators, members of pro-Nazi and fascist groups, and others with demonstrable ties to Germany and Italy. Among Italian Americans, 10,000 were reportedly evacuated from strategic zones and tens of thousands more were required to observe a nightly curfew by remaining in their homes.

The fact that the FBI had been keeping watch on these groups is unsurprising. The German-American Bund was a U.S. branch of Hitler's ruling party, replete with uniforms and flamboyant mass rallies. The Italian stalwarts of Mussolini in this country had a longer and even more vicious history. They mounted a strident public defense of the dictator from the beginning of his regime, terrorizing antifascists in the Italian-American community and even murdering enemies on American soil.