Japanese Americans in the Bay Area and beyond are understandably upset about Donald Trump talking about reviving a 227-year-old law that was used to round up and incarcerate their relatives during World War II.If Trump follows through on his threat to begin mass deportations as soon as he takes office next week, this will set off a maelstrom of legal fights and protests, and it could have potentially disastrous effects on the US economy. But Trump is mostly concerned with immigration, specifically the immigration of brown people across the southern border, and he'll want to show his base that he's more serious this time than he was about building that wall.How far this effort actually gets we'll have to wait and see. But Japanese Americans are sounding alarm bells about the danger inherent in reviving the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is the federal law Trump is threatening to invoke to conduct his deportations. "That it’s being resurrected like a zombie is really upsetting to a lot of Japanese Americans," says Susan Hayase, speaking to the Chronicle this week. "We have to stop this."Hayase and her husband Tom Izu are contributing to an exhibit at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose that looks at the history of the Redress Movement, the movement to extract reparations from the US government for Japanese American internment during World War II. Hayase and Izu both had relatives who were interred or sought after by the feds, and both were activists in the Redress Movement in the 1970s and 80s. Several politicians have sought to get the Alien Enemies Act repealed over the years, including Rep. Ilhan Omar in 2020. But Omar's Neighbors Not Enemies Act essentially died in committee and has gone nowhere.Japanese Americans around the country similarly rallied during the last Trump administration, pointing out the historical links between their ancestors' experience and the separation and incarceration of migrant families at the border in 2019.The Japanese American Museum is also celebrating Korematsu Day on January 25, as it does every year, in honor of Fred Korematsu and the landmark Supreme Court case he was a part of in 1944 that has stood as discredited precedent and has been called the "legalization of racism." Korematsu had been arrested for refusing to go an internment camp, and the high court ultimately ruled in the government's favor, The Redress Movement helped to revive the case, and in 1983, Korematsu had his name cleared by a lower court in San Francisco, which voided the 1944 decision on the grounds that the solicitor general at the time had suppressed an intelligence report that suggested there was no evidence that Japanese Americans were acting as spies.The Korematsu decision was cited by current Chief Justice John Roberts when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration in Trump v. Hawaii in 2018, which related to the infamous Muslim ban. Roberts cited the precedent set by Korematsu when it comes to executive power and the limiting of entry to the country by certain foreign nationals. However Roberts was careful to state that Korematsu "was gravely wrong the day it was decided, [and] has been overruled in the court of history," when it comes to the unlawful internment of citizens.Whether the high court continues to show such deference to Trump in all things, we'll have to see, but the signs point to yes. Still, there will be legal battles over whether the Alien Enemies Act can be invoked in peacetime, or whether undocument immigrants from Mexico or Venezuela or Honduras constitute "enemies."Izu and Hayase tell the Chronicle that they are currently leading trainings for undocumented immigrants in the Bay Area about what to do if ICE comes to their door.And, Hayase tells the paper, "We’re worried that a lot of people don’t understand the tie between what’s happening now to other immigrants and what happened to Japanese Americans [83 years ago]."Top image: INDEPENDENCE, CA - DECEMBER 09: PA vintage photograph is displayed at Manzanar War Relocation Center at Manzanar National Historic Site on December 9, 2015 near Independence, California. Recent presidential campaign rhetoric against Muslims in the wake of terror attacks has drawn comparisons to World War II era incarceration of Japanese Americans. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten internment camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were incarcerated from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)