For Survivors of Japanese Internment Camps, Court’s Korematsu Ruling Is ‘Bittersweet’

The actor George Takei, who was 5 years old when he was sent with his family to a camp in Arkansas, was rehearsing for a role when his husband interrupted him with some news this week from the Supreme Court.

It could have been a ruling to celebrate: the court had finally overturnedthe 1944 decision that the United States government could force more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent into internment camps.

But for Mr. Takei and many of those who spent months or years in the camps, the ruling on Tuesday felt more like a hollow victory. As pleased as they were that the court at last recognized what history has long regarded as a grave mistake, they lamented that it came as part of the decision that upheld President Trump’s ban on travel into the United States by citizens of several predominantly Muslim countries.

There are too many striking parallels, they said, between their treatment and the logic to justify keeping people out of the country.