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52 New Eng. L. Rev. F. 101 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/remand52 and id is 1 raw text is: The Lessons of World War II Selective Internment for Today's Travel Ban Debate MARY ELIZABETH BASILE CHOPAS When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Italian nationals (along with Japanese and Germans) living in this country who had not become American citizens were declared enemy aliens and subject to restrictions. Several thousand Italians were arrested and detained for hearings, and hundreds were interned for varying periods of time through the selective internment process. The story of Italian families affected by internment orders and various government policies, such as nighttime searches of homes for shortwave radios and signaling devices and restrictive curfews, illuminates how the executive branch of the U.S. government and the military in the 1940s responded to perceived threats to national security. There were multiple layers of repression- presumptive guilt in arrests, internment based on membership in social organizations or political parties and on expression of undemocratic ideas, and bars to citizenship. Decisions about who should be interned and who should be paroled or released were largely based on perceptions of who exhibited qualities befitting an American citizen, such as a positive attitude toward democracy, a good work ethic, and sentiments of allegiance to the U.S. government.1 The history of the internment of Italians during World War II raises questions similar to what we ask today about how liberal democracies may remain true to democratic values while protecting their citizens from terrorism. The ongoing debate that began in the winter of 2017 over the constitutionality and implementation of travel bans affecting foreign nationals from predominantly Muslim countries wishing to enter the United States poses the issue of whether persons may be barred from entry without having undergone an individualized determination of security threat based on specific intelligence.2 In its latest form, President Trump's 1 See MARY ELIZABETH BASILE CHOPAS, SEARCHING FOR SUBVERSIVES: THE STORY OF ITALIAN INTERNMENT IN WARTIME AMERICA 7 (2017). 2 See Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, Exec. Order No. 13769, revoked and replaced by Exec. Order No. 13780 (same title); Summary and Analysis of Trump Executive Order on Visa Issuance/Screening and Refugees, Doc. No. 17012775, https://perma.cc/27XB-ZWEG, (last visited Feb. 14, 2018).

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