Jamal Awil

← Forever Suspect_ Racialized…

Patriotic language in security laws justifies targeted group detentions. [causal]

The USA PATRIOT Act brought back some of the language surrounding patriotism that was used to justify the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II (Cole 2003). Specifically, the language used in the Enemy Alien Act, enacted in 1798, gives the president the authority to deport, detain, or expel any citizen of a country at war with the United States (Cole 2003). This act was a precursor to the internment of Japanese noncitizens and citizens alike. Muslims recognize that if another terrorist attack on the scale of the 9/11 occurs on American soil again, they could be detained and deported without due process or even interned.

XREF: Connects to Cole's work on constitutional law and the Enemy Alien Act lineage; parallels historical cycles of ethnic profiling in U.S. national security.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 411