A Latino Christian group calling on illegal immigrants to boycott the Census charges the agency with giving information to American surveillance agencies during World War II to identify people of Japanese ancestry.
It’s one of the more controversial accusations being made by the D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which represents about 16,000 churches.
Read the Observer's story about the boycott, here.
Miguel Rivera, president of the organization, says the Census’s promises of confidentiality should not be trusted. He cites a Fordham University study that reports the Census bureau gave a list of everyone with Japanese ancestry to the Treasury Department in 1943.
According to William Seltzer, a senior research scholar in Fordham’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the data from the 1940 census, collected under a pledge of confidentiality, was handed over in seven days. Researchers say the bureau also disclosed information about others to the FBI as well as information about businesses and organizations to war planning agencies, such as the Office of Emergency Management.
Whether the Census provided information on Japanese Americans during World War II has been a highly contested matter for decades, Seltzer says. The controversy was reignited in 2004 when it was reported that the Census Bureau had provided zip-code data from the 2000 census about Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security.
Census spokesman Raul Cisneros acknowledged to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the Second War Powers Act in 1942 did authorize the Department of Commerce to make certain information available for the purposes of national defense. But he said those laws have been changed.
“Current law . . . explicitly forbids the Census Bureau from disclosing information," he said. "With regards to claims that the government used information to target Arab groups after 9/11, this particular situation involved disclosing information that was already fully available to the public.”
We’re not sure the fact that the Census pulled all that public information together and then handed it over eases anybody’s anxiety.
What do you think?
Photo: AP
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23 comments:
I think the census folks provided the US government with data it already owned. Why shouldn't one federal government entity work with another? The fact of the matter is that it wasn't only the Japanese who were targeted but German, Russian and Italians as well.
ah yes, break one law and it gives people minds to break more laws. They are ILLEGALLY here. The constitution mandates the census. So what does the illegals want to do: not get counted in the census. shame shame. This is why all of the illegals should get deported! I have friends who have had to deal with the headaches of being here legally- the losers who think its their right to be here and do it illegally just hurt their fellow countrymen who do it legally but have to deal with the stares and discrimination.
Why is the Charlotte Observer catering to illegals so much? Break the law, face the consequence. What is so hard to understand? I turn in any company that hires them or any I know that are here illegally.
The Japanese were here legally.
You are beginning with the presumption that the internment was wrong. It was not wrong. It was right. Now, with that said, congratulate a census bureau employee today.
For one the camps in ww2 weren't nice but guess what neither were the Japaneses then either, It was a "WORLD WAR". Get over it the Census was just doing their job deal with it and two maybe that camp idea isn't so bad really. With all the illegals here in this country lets recreate camps for temp holding. And if the illegal is young and semi healthy enough offer them 8 years of military service for the ability to become a citizen. If they are too old chip them and send them back they blew their chance a long time ago.
It sounds mean but its that or start watching more and more people take advantage of them both physically and mentally. This way they have a fighting chance (bad pun) to show us they want to be an American.
if it did then hello!!! we were at war with Japan; muslems attacked us 09/11; millions of hispanics are here illegally; if not happy with the way things work then illegals LEAVW; you are bankrupting our medical system
Well, with that precedent already set, let's give the census info to Immigration and let them have at it...
Illegals are in this Country due to Big Business control of DC with PAC funds to drive American wages down. Anyone remember the I9 forms, it used to be to bus tables you had to have 2 IDs on file, Birth Certificate, Passport, Drivers License and SS Card. If not then the business could be shut down if they were not on file at the location of employment. The same thing is going on with out-sourcing e.g. IT, Radiology etc. remember 20 years ago you could work in a textile plant starting at 40K with no college education, full benefits and vacation. I see jobs listed now in IT advertised for about the same amount of money with a 4 year degree and 5 years experience required. It should be a Felony to house or employee any Illegal Alien - they are not Immigrants!!! Allow Police Officers (whom are currently not allowed in Charlotte) to just ask the question are you in the US legally? Notice crime statistics drop in Charlotte recently? Illegal's arrest records are now non-public records - if an American is arrested it is public record - Illegals in Mecklenburg are not thus the 30% drop in crime rates reported this year. They are driving our school systems and health care systems into bankruptcy which will be paid for by tax paying Americans. If you want to immigrate to the US then indeed do so but if come here illegally then you should be deported and whom ever employed you and housed you gets a Felony - problem solved. Of course our so called Government will not go in this direction and the media reports e.g. 60% of all Americans are for some form of amnesty - I work and know about 100 Americans and non of them are for amnesty and all are against Illegal Aliens and for all of the above. Again it is Big Business driving wages down and controlling DC with PAC funds to keep the boarder open and these policies. Nothing against the people themselves. Turn it around, if you could go and make a days wages tax free in less than an hour digging ditches in Mexico e.g. $200 an hour in 3 years on a full time schedule you would almost have 3 million dollars and could retire depending on your lifestyle, folks say Americans are too lazy to do this work the above should be considered. Above all we are continuing as a Country to use slaves, that is what the Illegals are is exploited / continued slave labor, they have to live in garages or houses with 10/20 other folks and work at below standard wages to save all the money to send or bring home and do not contribute to our society as a whole and are being exploited by our Government and Big Business for profit and to drive down American wages.
It is in the best interest of conservatives to keep the census low in areas where there are minorities and poor, because poor and minorities typically lean democratic, including hispanics, in recent history. By getting the hispanics to boycott the census, they increase the chances that conservative areas get more representatives.
Hey, who cares? If you're in this country illegally, you are not LEGALLY required to participate in the census. If are here ILLEGALLY and you do participate in the census, your information should be turned over to ICE, so that they can DEPORT you...
Deportation is a waste of money. They're going to come back anyways. So we apend money, and have spent money, putting an illegal immigrant through incarceration, court time and deportation 3 or more times? No. I like the required military service or guarnteee to work on infrastructure projects or some way to prove their loyalty to the United States. Rehash our current immigration laws and let's start taxing these immigrants so they pay for their own healthcare and education. DON'T WASTE MY MONEY ON DEPORTATION.
It was almost 70 years ago. Get over it.
The big difference between then and now is that the Japanese that were sent to camps were citizens, we were also at war with there former homeland. The hispanics of today are ilegal and we are not in any sort of war with any latin country.
But then, if I was ilegally in the country, I would too be peranoid. Maybe if they came into the country legally, they wouldn't feel like they have to hide in the shadows.
No, the census didn't aid Japanese-American internment, this was a panic after Japan bombed the &&&& out of Pearl Harbor, killing thousands of our military, nurses, doctors and civilians. The circumstances were called WWII.
Illegal immigrants, Latino or otherwise, should be afraid of a census - they should be deported the minute they are discovered. They have committed a felony, coming here without authorization or staying after their visas have expired. If we did this in foreign countries, we woudl be in jail, pronto. A US legal citizen who commits a felony is arrested and goes to jail. Why not the illegals? Whine, whine whine is all they do, and take take take, our tax dollars in schooling, free housing, medical care. They clog up our emergency rooms and don't pay, while we, with insurance or just legally here get higher bills to compensate for these deadbeats. They fill up our schools, causing money to be wasted in spanish speaking teachers, trailers having to be installed and sucking up our free lunch and breakfast programs, using our buses to get to our schools from their welfare homes.
Someone, I believe from a think tank in Utah said for every tax dollar we pay to the governments (city, county, state and federal) over 53% is spent on illegals in one way or the other, housing, medical, school, food, criminal (jail, free attornies, etc). Send them all back.
Unless they are expecting Mexico to attack Pearl Harbor... I don't think they have anything to worry about.
Another minor detail is that most Americans have come to understand that the internment of Japanese-Americans was (contrary to some claims posted here) a mistake and would not repeat it.
nccanuck,
No, the "fact of the matter" is that only Japanese-Americans were interned. Germans and Italians were not, and I suggest you go back and re-read your history because the Russians were our allies in WWII, despite the fact they sided with the Germans against Poland, they were at war with Germany by the time we entered the war.
The Japanese Americans were put in safe holding camps for their own protection and Americas. Most had relatives in Japan who could have caused great harm had Japans military. Most of them did not have deep roots here and held alligence with the motherland and emporor Hito who was considered a god.
Technically Hitler did the same thing with jews and others. We know 60 million Europeans died in WW2 and all the homes towns villages and cities were firebombed thus ironically even his camps served as protection since not a single firebomb of the millions dropped by the Allies hit one single camp in spite of the holocaust controvery that still exists today. That 6 million number has been disproven and reduced to a million or so although many died of disease and contamination or starvation due to wartime deficiencies. Some cremation of dead prisoners was used primarily to eradicate the spread of disease only.
Had the Japanese not not brutally and viciously attacked Pearl Harbor killing over 3000 Americans bombing everything from ships to hospitals there wouldnt have been a problem with safe internment and it wouldnt have been wise to simply leave them in their homes cities and communities to fend for themselves from angry Americans who would have certainly done them great harm. This includes danger from not only white citizens but also citizens of Mexican and African descent. They were not mistreated and it was done for their own protection and trying to 2nd guess the US actions 70 yrs later is only the wrongheaded pc mentality of this age.
America was created by all the many great European white nations and many cultures as a vast European American melting pot. European misgenation mostly eliminated the so called pure German over the centuries anyway even though all Europeans are of the causasoid white race.
Furthurmore any liberal pc idiot who 2nd guesses American actions displays racist motives. America and its history is what it is like it or not. Deal with it.
"The Japanese were here legally."
Issei were not here legally. They came over as temporary workers and stayed. That's why Issei were allowed permanent resident status and not citizenship.
"The big difference between then and now is that the Japanese that were sent to camps were citizens, we were also at war with there former homeland."
Approximately two-thirds of the ADULTS among those evacuated were Japanese nationals--enemy aliens. The vast majority of evacuated Japanese-Americans (U.S. citizens) were children at the time. Their average age was only 15 years. In addition, over 90% of Japanese-Americans over age 17 were also citizens of Japan (dual citizens)under Japanese law. Thousands had been educated in Japan. Some having returned to the U.S. holding reserve rank in the Japanese armed forces.
"Another minor detail is that most Americans have come to understand that the internment of Japanese-Americans was (contrary to some claims posted here) a mistake and would not repeat it."
That's because most Americans have only a passive understanding of the history behind the evacuation thanks to the 1988 "Civil Liberties" Bill that allows your taxpayer dollars be used to supress the total history and re-educate the American people.
"No, the "fact of the matter" is that only Japanese-Americans were interned. Germans and Italians were not..."
German Americans on the east coast and throughout the country were arrested, interned, and in some cases deported. Almost 11,000 German Americans were interned in the U.S. during World War II. Many German Americans sat, worked, played and went to school in the same camps as their Japanese American counterparts.
Furthermore even before the first ethnic Japanese was interned, 600,000 Italian Americans and 300,000 German Americans were deprived of their civil liberties when they (all persons, male and female, age 14 and older) were required to register as "Alien Enemies." This registration entailed photographing, fingerprinting and the issuance of identification cards which the Alien Enemies had to have on their possession at all times. In addition they were forbidden: to fly; to leave their neighborhoods; to possess cameras, short-wave radio receivers, and firearms. Finally, these persons were required to report any change of employment or address to the Department of Justice.
So where is the German or Italian booty reparations? ... We have been hearing the slackards of African slaves whine about repararations for ages that is laughable ( as if welfare and other feebie reparations hadnt been paid a trillion times over that wasnt owned anyway)...
We have heard about the Japanese reparatation payment crybabies. Then there are the black farmers who Obama is going to pay off...
Where is the booty for these German Americans and Italian Americans since all this free booty is being given away to all the rest of the whiner crybabies...
What about the 1.5 million Americans who died in wars? Wheres their free booty? ...
Shouldnt the south sue the north for preemptively invading it too for no good reason? Thanks to the great heroic native Marylander Mr John Wilkes Booth who called the shot right... Death to tyrants ...
Maybe Afghanistan and Iraq should sue America. Or Nam? Or Korea?
The list goes on ...
Thankfully some people have decency and good sense and not after a free lunch all the time ...
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