The former Tanforan Racetrack site has become a focal point for Bay Area Japanese American activists drawing comparisons between the community's wartime incarceration and current federal immigration enforcement. Donald Tamaki, whose family was detained there in 1942, is among those who say the historical experience of racial targeting and the denial of due process carries a warning for the present.
Tamaki, who as an attorney helped clear Fred Korematsu's wartime conviction in 1983, told the Mercury News that Japanese Americans have experienced firsthand what it means to be singled out and denied their rights. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, a measure used to justify the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans regardless of citizenship status or evidence that they posed a threat, according to the report. More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were ultimately incarcerated in camps nationwide, per the same account.
A Racetrack Turned Prison, Now a Memorial
Between April and October 1942, the federal government incarcerated nearly 8,000 Bay Area residents of Japanese descent — 64% of whom were U.S. citizens — at Tanforan before transferring them to longer-term camps such as Topaz, Utah, according to Bay Area Rapid Transit. Tanforan was California's second-largest temporary assembly center, and families were housed in converted horse stalls. Fred Korematsu refused to report to Tanforan and was arrested and convicted, a case that later became a landmark in American civil rights law, the Mercury News reports.
In August 2022, community members and civic leaders unveiled a permanent memorial plaza at the San Bruno BART station on the former Tanforan site, according to the San Bruno Community Foundation. The plaza features a bronze statue modeled on a 1942 Dorothea Lange photograph of two young Japanese American sisters awaiting forced removal, and the decade-long project also includes a replica horse stall and wall plaques listing the names of all 8,000 people held there.
How the 1944 Conviction Was Overturned
The Supreme Court ruled in 1944, in a 6-3 decision, that the internment was acceptable under the claimed national emergency, according to the Mercury News. That ruling stood for nearly four decades until Korematsu's conviction was cleared in 1983 by a legal team that included Tamaki, work that relied on suppressed government records. Researcher Peter Irons had uncovered documents showing that military and Justice Department officials knowingly hid reports finding Japanese Americans posed no security threat, according to Berkeley Law. The 1983 petition, known as a writ of error coram nobis, was led by San Francisco attorney Dale Minami. Federal government lawyers and military members had withheld, fabricated or destroyed evidence in the case, the Mercury News reports.
Minami said Japanese American activists carry a particular moral authority to stand up for groups being singled out or profiled today, according to the outlet. Karen Korematsu, Fred Korematsu's daughter, said the nation is repeating its mistakes because it has not learned its history, the report states. Karen Korematsu now heads the Korematsu Institute and helped formulate the model curriculum for California's ethnic studies program, and she co-founded the Stop Repeating History campaign alongside Minami and Tamaki, an effort that educates people about the history of discrimination and encourages civic engagement.
From Redress Payments to Today's Detention Numbers
Congress eventually acknowledged the wrong: President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law, which granted payments to eligible surviving Japanese Americans who had been interned, according to the Mercury News. Those payments totaled $20,000 per person at the time, an amount equivalent to about $56,000 in 2026, the outlet reports.
The Mercury News reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds more than 60,000 people in detention and that more than 70% have no criminal conviction. TRAC also provides information about ICE detention and Alternatives to Detention programs. Beyond physical detention beds, Alternatives to Detention programs are another form of immigration monitoring.
What the Available Records Show
The available records in this account do not establish how many people ICE recently arrested, detained or referred for detention specifically in the Bay Area. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, its enforcement-statistics dashboards report trends in arrests, detentions, removals and alternatives to detention through Dec. 31, 2024. Separately, the California Department of Justice said its 2025 immigration-detention report examined mental health and the availability and quality of mental-health services in facilities holding people for ICE. Local government records document a response to the broader concern, but not a Bay Area ICE activity total: an Alameda County Board of Supervisors agenda document says the board unanimously approved a $3.5 million emergency allocation for immigrant and refugee communities on March 11, 2025. The records cited here do not independently verify recent local arrest totals, detention referrals or the specific effect of that allocation on federal enforcement.
Local Organizing, From Nikkei Resisters to Japantown
Susan Hayase, who co-founded the San Jose Nikkei Resisters in 2017, has also helped lead the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations. She said Japanese Americans grew up under the pressure of erasure, per the Mercury News. The Nikkei Resisters rallied against a proposed ICE facility in Gilroy, according to the same report. Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong is also identified as a supporter who discussed Japanese American solidarity and refugee history, the outlet notes.
Support for immigrants in San Francisco is also part of the broader community response. The report notes that the Japanese American community has previously helped Vietnamese and Southeast Asian refugees gain acceptance in Santa Clara County. San Jose Japantown organizations have formed the Neighbors Not Enemies Coalition, which advocates for repeal of the Alien Enemies Act, the outlet reports.
The 1798 Law in Today's Debate
The 1798 Alien Enemies Act has become part of the current immigration debate. Human Rights Watch has published a report about repealing it at Human Rights Watch. The law is discussed alongside the broader mass removal mandated by Executive Order 9066.
In response, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Mazie Hirono reintroduced the Neighbors Not Enemies Act in January 2025 to fully repeal the Alien Enemies Act, according to Senator Hirono's office. The statute grants executive authority to detain or deport noncitizens from a designated host nation during wartime or invasion, the office notes. The Alien Enemies Act remains part of the current immigration debate.
Separately, Korematsu and Trump v. Hawaii remain part of the constitutional history of policies targeting minority groups; see the Constitution Center.
Founded by Japanese American camp survivors and descendants, the direct-action group Tsuru for Solidarity has organized protests at federal detention centers. The organization has also been active in protests. The Japanese American community also commemorates the wartime incarceration with Day of Remembrance events; the Japanese American Citizens League provides information about the observance. Those events are part of the community's public remembrance of the incarceration.
