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Gehrke: Echoes of Japanese-American, and even Mormon, persecution in the case of Trump’s travel ban

Fred Korematsu was a welder on the docks in Oakland, Calif., in 1942, when he was called into the union office one February morning and told he was fired.

It was months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and, based on an order from President Franklin Roosevelt, Korematsu was one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans ordered to leave their homes and report to internment camps.

(Photo courtesy of The Korematsu Institute) Utah Gov. Gary Herbert issued a proclamation in 2013 designating Jan. 30 as Fred Korematsu Day in honor of the former internee at Utah's Topaz internment camp who went on to make history. Korematsu is pictured here with his Presidential Medal of Freedom, granted in 1998. Korematsu died in 2005 at age 86.
(Photo courtesy of The Korematsu Institute) Utah Gov. Gary Herbert issued a proclamation in 2013 designating Jan. 30 as Fred Korematsu Day in honor of the former internee at Utah's Topaz internment camp who went on to make history.