I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4680 
To ensure due process protections of individuals in the United States against 
unlawful detention based solely on a protected characteristic. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 19, 2017 
Mr. TAKANO introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To ensure due process protections of individuals in the 
United States against unlawful detention based solely 
on a protected characteristic. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Korematsu-Takai Civil 
Liberties Protection Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) On February 19, 1942, President Franklin 
D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 (7 Fed. 
Reg. 1407; relating to authorizing the Secretary of 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
War to prescribe military areas), endowing the Sec-
retary of War and the designated military com-
manders of the Secretary of War with the power to 
create military zones and forcibly exclude persons as 
the Secretary of War and the designated military 
commanders determined to be ‘‘necessary and desir-
able’’. 
(2) On March 2, 1942, military commander 
Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt promulgated 
Public Proclamation No. 1, which declared that the 
entire Pacific Coast was ‘‘particularly subject to at-
tack, to attempted invasion . . . and, in connection 
therewith, [was] subject to espionage and acts of 
sabotage’’ and that ‘‘[s]uch persons or classes of 
persons as the situation may require will by subse-
quent proclamation be excluded from all of Military 
Area No. 1 and . . . [some] zones within Military 
Area No. 2.’’. On that basis, General Dewitt des-
ignated all of California, the western halves of Or-
egon and Washington, and the southern half of Ari-
zona as ‘‘Military Area No. 1’’. 
(3) On March 21, 1942, President Roosevelt 
signed the Act of March 21, 1942 (56 Stat. 173, 
chapter 191) (commonly referred to as ‘‘Public Law 
503’’), which stated, ‘‘[W]hoever shall enter, remain 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
03:26 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
in, leave, or commit any act in any military area or 
military zone . . . shall . . . be guilty . . . and 
upon conviction shall be liable to a fine . . . or . . . 
imprisonment . . . or both. . . .’’. 
(4) Pursuant to Executive Order 9066 (7 Fed. 
Reg. 1407; relating to authorizing the Secretary of 
War to prescribe military areas), Public Proclama-
tion No. 1, and Public Law 503, on March 27, 
1942, General DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion 
Order No. 34, making it a crime for Japanese 
Americans to leave Military Area No. 1. 
(5) On May 3, 1942, under the authority of Ci-
vilian Exclusion Order No. 34, General DeWitt 
issued another military order making it a crime for 
Japanese Americans to remain in Military Area No. 
1 and ordering those Japanese Americans into 
make-shift detention centers, allowing those individ-
uals to take only that which they could carry. 
(6) The order of May 3, 1942, created an im-
possible predicament for Japanese Americans— 
(A) as those orders were diametrically con-
tradictory because— 
(i) simultaneously, Japanese Ameri-
cans were made criminals whether they left 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
their homes or did not leave their homes; 
and 
(ii) obedience to one part of Public 
Law 503 would necessarily violate the 
other; and 
(B) because the only way that Japanese 
Americans could avoid criminal prosecution was 
to submit to indeterminate incarceration in 
temporary detention camps through what was 
called an ‘‘evacuation’’, which was in fact a 
mass roundup of all individuals of Japanese an-
cestry, including orphans, babies, the ill, and 
the elderly. 
(7) Congress established the Commission on 
Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, 
which later found that, ‘‘Decades of discrimination 
against immigrants from Japan and public hostility 
toward Americans of Japanese descent fueled out-
raged shock at the Pearl Harbor attack.’’. 
(8) The February 1942 recommendation of 
General DeWitt said, ‘‘The Japanese race is an 
enemy race and while many second and third gen-
eration Japanese born on American soil, possessed 
of United States citizenship, have become ‘Ameri-
canized’, the racial strains are undiluted . . . It 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast 
over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extrac-
tion, are at large today . . . The very fact that no 
sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and 
confirming indication that such action will be 
taken.’’. 
(9) By the spring of 1943, Japanese Americans 
were volunteering to serve in the Armed Forces of 
the United States, and there was growing sentiment 
to allow them and their families to return home. The 
testimony of General DeWitt before a subcommittee 
of the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House of 
Representatives on April 13, 1943, highlighted the 
discriminatory nature of the orders to evacuate, relo-
cate, and incarcerate Japanese Americans. Histo-
rians have quoted General DeWitt as stating, ‘‘A 
Jap’s a Jap! . . . It makes no difference whether he 
is an American or not.’’. 
(10) In 1942, there were 1,100,000 nationals of 
enemy nations in the United States, and, of those 
individuals, fewer than 4 percent were Japanese na-
tionals. A curfew was enacted that applied to nation-
als from Germany, Italy, and Japan. American citi-
zens of Japanese ancestry also had to abide by the 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
curfew, whereas, American citizens of German an-
cestry and Italian ancestry did not. 
(11) Individuals were forced to leave their 
homes and livelihoods behind. Most bank accounts 
were frozen or confiscated as enemy assets. People 
were allowed to take what they could carry, exclud-
ing any item that the Government deemed ‘‘contra-
band’’. 
(12) There were 10 permanent incarceration 
sites, all of which were in isolated areas— 
(A) at Gila River, Arizona; 
(B) at Poston, Arizona; 
(C) at Jerome, Arkansas; 
(D) at Rohwer, Arkansas; 
(E) at Manzanar, California; 
(F) at Tule Lake Segregation Center, Cali-
fornia; 
(G) at Granada, Colorado (commonly re-
ferred to as ‘‘Amache’’); 
(H) at Minadoka, Idaho; 
(I) at Topaz, Utah; and 
(J) at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. 
(13) Each incarceration site held between 7,000 
and 18,000 individuals, and a total of approximately 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00006
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
120,000 Japanese Americans were ultimately de-
tained. 
(14) Some Japanese Americans, including Fred 
Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Minoru Yasui, 
challenged the detention, exclusion, and curfew or-
ders aimed at Japanese Americans. 
(15) In June 1943, the Supreme Court of the 
United States unanimously decided Hirabayashi v. 
United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), and the com-
panion case Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115 
(1943). In the Hirabayashi case, the Supreme Court 
found that both the power delegated to the military 
to impose curfews and the Executive orders creating 
that power were constitutional despite— 
(A) their applications primarily to Ameri-
cans of Japanese ancestry on the basis of the 
particular ‘‘racial characteristics’’ of Americans 
of Japanese ancestry; and 
(B) the fact that the ultimate result of the 
orders was imprisonment for an indefinite pe-
riod of confinement that was imposed without— 
(i) the right to an attorney; 
(ii) the right to notice of the charges 
against the individual being imprisoned; 
and 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00007
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
(iii) the right to a trial. 
(16) On December 18, 1944, the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in the 6–3 decision in 
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), 
held that the order requiring exclusion of persons of 
Japanese ancestry from States on the West Coast 
was constitutional. The majority of the Court— 
(A) found that the order did not violate 
the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States and was constitutional as a 
‘‘military necessity’’; and 
(B) cited the racial characteristic justifica-
tion from the Hirabayashi case to support the 
decision in the Korematsu case. 
(17) The dissenting Justices in the Korematsu 
case pointed out the blatant race-based deprivation 
of constitutional rights caused by the curfew and ex-
clusion orders as follows: 
(A) Justice Jackson acknowledged the def-
erence afforded to the other branches of the 
Federal Government in times of war but argued 
that such deference should not force the Court 
to ratify or enforce unconstitutional orders. 
Justice Jackson noted that Fred Korematsu 
should be found innocent, as his guilt was based 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
02:38 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00008
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS
‘‘only in that he was born of different racial 
stock’’. 
(B) Justice Murphy emphasized that the 
United States was not under martial law and 
that ‘‘[s]uch exclusion goes over the very brink 
of constitutional power, and falls into the ugly 
abyss of racism’’. 
(C) Justice Roberts explicitly acknowl-
edged the racist basis of the orders, stating that 
‘‘[t]he obvious purpose of the orders made, 
taken together, was to drive all citizens of Jap-
anese ancestry into Assembly Centers within 
the zones of their residence, under pain of 
criminal prosecution.’’. Justice Roberts also ex-
plained the clear unconstitutional basis of the 
orders, pointing out that ‘‘if a citizen was con-
strained by two laws, or two orders having the 
force of law, and obedience to one would violate 
the other, to punish him for violation of either 
would deny him due process of law.’’. 
(18) The public, Congress, and the President 
began efforts to address the wrongs of incarceration 
and to provide redress for individuals who had been 
incarcerated. 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
03:26 Dec 20, 2017
Jkt 079200
PO 00000
Frm 00009
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\H4680.IH
H4680
lotter on DSKBCFDHB2PROD with BILLS