Lessons About Anti-Immigrant “Fever”

The governor of Texas is threatening to sue a private agency that has resettled 180 Syrians since the civil war began in 2011, if the group continues to aid Syrians who are approved for refugee status by U.S. authorities. Governor Abbott cites safety concerns.

In 1942, Taroa Takahashi— a Japanese immigrant who was lawfully in the U.S. as a permanent resident—was taken to a U.S. concentration camp by military authorities. When he returned to his home in California, he was barred by a state law that denied non-citizens the right to fish. Takahashi was a commercial fisherman. He sued, claiming that the California denied him the right to equal protection under its laws. The Supreme Court agreed with him, and struck down the anti-immigrant law. Here is an excerpt from Justices Murphy and Rutledge:

The statute in question is but one more manifestation of the anti-Japanese fever [emphasis added] which has been evident in California in varying degrees since the turn of the century…. For some years prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, these protagonists of intolerance had been leveling unfounded accusations and innuendoes against Japanese fishing crews operating off the coast of California. These fishermen numbered about a thousand and most of them had long resided in that state. It was claimed that they were engaged not only in fishing but in espionage and other illicit activities on behalf of the Japanese Government. As war with Japan approached and finally became a reality, these charges were repeated with increasing vigor. Yet full investigations by appropriate authorities failed to reveal any competent supporting evidence; not even one Japanese fisherman was arrested for alleged espionage. Such baseless accusations can only be viewed as an integral part of the long campaign to undermine the reputation of persons of Japanese background and to discourage their residence in California…. During the height of this racial storm in 1943, numerous anti-Japanese bills were considered by the California legislators…. We should not blink at the fact that Section 990, as now written, is a discriminatory piece of legislation having no relation whatever to any constitutionally cognizable interest of California. It is directed in spirit and in effect solely against aliens of Japanese birth. It denies them commercial fishing rights not because they threaten the success of any conservation program, not because their fishing activities constitute a clear and present danger to the welfare of California or of the nation, but only because they are of Japanese stock, a stock which has had the misfortune to arouse antagonism among certain powerful interests. The case is here.