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We Condemn Misuse of Alien Enemies Act of 1798
March 17, 2025 The German American Internee Coalition strongly condemns the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 by President Trump and his administration to roundup and deport Venezuelan immigrants. The Alien Enemies Act was last used in World War II to justify the...
Mother Jones Magazine Article on Alien Enemies Act
Mother Jones magazine published an article on March18, 2025, written by Isabela Dias, entitled “The US Used the Alien Enemies Act to Detain Their Families. Now, They are Watching History Repeat.” Featuring the experiences of Heidi Gurcke Donald, who was brought with...
Time Article about Invocation of Alien Enemies Act
Karen Ebel, President of the German American Internee Coalition, and Grace Shimizu, Director of the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project and Campaign for Justice: Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans! wrote an opinion piece for Time magazine, published March 17,...
Analyzing Trump’s Plan to Invoke the Alien Enemies Act
On December 10, 2024, the Brennan Center for Justice hosted "Analyzing Trump's Plan to Invoke the Alien Enemies Act," an hour-long discussion about the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, its use in WWII, and its possible use in the Trump administration. Speakers were...
Recent German Radio Programs about WWII Internment
Two German reporters based in the U.S. recently had new reports about WWII German American internment on German radio. San Francisco-based Christoph Droesser’s report, “Unter Naziverdacht: Deutsche Internierte in den USA im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” was followed by "Angst...
Clean Repeal of Alien Enemies Act?
In mid-October, the Brennan Center at New York University School of Law issued The Alien Enemies Act: Unjust, Unnecessary, and Unconsititutional, a report decrying the continued existence of the Alien Enemies Act and calling for its repeal. Katherine Ebright, who...
In Our Midst, a Novel about Internment
Drawing upon a long-suppressed episode in American history, when thousands of German immigrants were rounded up and interned following the attack on Pearl Harbor, In Our Midst follows one family, the Austs, as they struggle to stay together in a new America—one...
Art Jacobs’ Death
Art Jacobs, former internee, U.S. Air Force Major, and educator at Arizona State University, died November 20, 2023, at the age of 90, in Tempe, Arizona. Art was the one of the first former internees to educate the public about internment policies with a website, a...
the Lorenz Family Story
Tracking the Lorenz Family Through Franklin Roosevelt’s Internment by Karl Malek Early in 1942, while World War II was ravaging the globe, my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, my grandfather, and my great-aunt were being detained by the Peruvian government in...
Crystal City Event Planned for October 26-29, 2023
The yearly pilgrimage to Crystal City, Texas, by former internees, their families and friends is planned for October 26-29, 2023. This year’s Pilgrimage theme is “Reaching Across Barbed Wire Fences.” In addition to learning about the unique history and stories of...
The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II exhibit to open Oct. 1, 2022
An updated version of the “The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II" exhibit begins its tour at the Angel Island Immigration Museum in San Francisco Bay on October 1, 2022. There will be a panel presentation that day with guest speakers Lawrence Distasi,...
U.S. Government Found Liable for WWII Human Rights Violations
Grace Shimizu, director of Campaign For Justice: Redress NOW For Japanese Latin Americans! recently announced that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published its verdict in the case Isamu Carlos "Art" Shibayma vs United States, holding that the...
Werner Ulrich, Jr., former internee, featured in Uvalde, TX Newspaper
The Uvalde Leader-News, a newspaper “Informing Southwest Texas since 1879,” published "Texas visitor recalls war internment" on May 15, 2022 about Werner Ulrich Jr., who, with his family, was interned in the Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp during WWII. Way...
the Schlösser Family Story
By Margret S. de Oliveira Castro— Friedrich Walter Schlösser was jailed in El Salvador, interned in the USA, and deported to Germany. He always maintained he had been the victim of an illegal international kidnapping. Born in Hamburg on July 2, 1902, he was only 12...
Recent broadcast features John E. Schmitz, author of “Enemies Among Us”
"With Good Reason," Virginia Humanities Radio, aired an hour-long program called "Legacies of World War II" on May 6, 2022. John E. Schmitz, author of Enemies Among Us, was interviewed in one segment about his family's three-year internment in Crystal City, Texas and...
Justice Denied: an Historical Sojourn
Wendel, Joe. Bloomington, Indiana: Archway Publishing, 2017. Dr. Joe Wendel writes a wide-ranging history of German and German Americans, focused on providing insights into the two World Wars from the viewpoint of a German American who lived in Austria during WWII....
Commemorating Tuna Canyon Detention Station
On December 2, 2021, Adam Schiff, a California delegate to the House of Representatives, spoke to the Congressional Record, recognizing the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station in California and commending the Tuna Canyon Detention...
Introducing New Board Member
We are so pleased to announce that Sigrid Banzhaf Toye, PhD, has joined our Board. Sigrid's father, Eugen Banzhaf, was interned for several years during WWII, before being released on parole. She is an educational and behavior therapist in private practice and holds a...
Enemies Among Us: the Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans During the Second World War
Schmitz, John E. Enemies Among Us: the Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans During the Second World War. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2021. In Enemies among Us John E. Schmitz examines the causes,...
Newly Published: “Enemies Among Us” by John E. Schmitz
John E. Schmitz, Ph.D., son of former internee John Schmitz, and history professor at Northern Virginia Community College, has written Enemies Among Us: the Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian and Japanese Americans during the Second...
Port of No Return: Enemy Alien Internment in World War II New Orleans
Miller, Marilyn Grace. Port of No Return: Enemy Alien Internment in World War II New Orleans. LSU Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 2021. One of two principal ports through which enemy aliens might enter the United States, New Orleans saw the arrival of thousands of Latin...