JACL Responds to President Trump’s Inaugural Executive Orders
January 22, 2025
For Immediate Release
Seia Watanabe, VP Public Affairs, swatanabe@jacl.org
Matthew Weisbly, Education Programs/Comms Manager, mweisbly@jacl.org
The JACL is deeply alarmed and concerned by the Executive Orders issued by President Trump following his inauguration as our nation’s 47th President. These executive orders threaten to destroy decades of advances in civil liberties and civil rights. The Japanese American Citizens League is especially concerned with Executive Orders calling for the end of birthright citizenship, an escalation of the border crisis including the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, the overt discrimination towards LGBTQIA+ individuals, and the rollback of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility initiatives including the removal of key governmental programs meant to support marginalized communities and the perversion of Civil Rights laws to advance a white supremacist agenda.
Much of the language and rhetoric within these orders hearken back to numerous times in our nation’s long-ago history, when our government openly discriminated against marginalized groups particularly our own Japanese American community, echoing all too eerily the months preceding and following Executive Order 9066. The declaration of a “national emergency” at our Southern border, with plans to use “detention centers” resulting in possibly “family separation” directly parallels the trumped-up threat of national security from Japanese Americans during WWII resulting in the mass incarceration of 125,000 people, who were never convicted of a crime or given due process protected under the law. Just as it was then, the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is being used with the fear of an overstated national security threat to remove fundamental legal protections for immigrants.
During WWII, two-thirds of the 125,000 men, women, and children forcibly removed from the safety of their homes and incarcerated in American concentration camps were American citizens by birth under the 14th Amendment and affirmed by the Supreme Court Case US v. Wong Kim Ark. They gained this citizenship even as their parents were barred from naturalization due to the racist laws in place at the time. And while it may be a coincidence, the date on which this order would go into effect has even further meaning for Japanese Americans. The order states that it shall go into effect 30 days after its issuance, which falls on February 19th, 2025 — exactly 83 years to the day from the signing of Executive Order 9066 which paved the way for Japanese American incarceration.
Following the indignity of our community’s incarceration, the JACL recognized the shared experience of discrimination and the need to work together as a nation to implement the instruments to overcome the impediments of structural racism. As we remember the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. this week, we recall the fight for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which remains the law of the land and continues to lift up the equal rights of protected communities. The administration’s efforts to dismantle Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility programs place it in direct opposition to these laws that all government employees are sworn to uphold, including the President. Dismantling programs like the White House Initiative on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders only cripples the ability of the government to work effectively in our communities.
We especially recognize the ugly hatred directed at the transgender community. Revoking the recognition of transgender people on their federally issued documents will not erase them and pitting transgender people against women and false fears for our children will not be a winning strategy. This strategy failed years ago when it was employed against the broader gay and lesbian communities and it will fail again this time.
JACL opposes these executive orders and the attempts to dismantle generations of civil rights law. In a single day, our nation has once again regressed to a bygone era that engenders fear of communities of color, immigrants, and all those who don’t conform to some people’s view of what it means to be an American. These are not the true threats to our democracy and to our nation that these executive orders would lead us to believe. Our ancestors fought to bring an end to our discriminatory past, to ensure that future generations had a better chance in this nation. We must recognize that there is still much work to be done, that discrimination remains a part of our society, and that now is not the time to roll back our efforts to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans.
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The Japanese American Citizens League is a national organization whose ongoing mission is to secure and maintain the civil rights of Japanese Americans and all others who are victimized by injustice and bigotry. The leaders and members of the JACL also work to promote cultural, educational, and social values and preserve the heritage and legacy of the Japanese American community.
