# In a legally declared war with another country, are all nationals deported?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-a-legally-declared-war-with-another-country-are-all-nationals-deported/734332>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 11, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-a-legally-declared-war-with-another-country-are-all-nationals-deported/734332 "2015-10-11T19:14:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-a-legally-declared-war-with-another-country-are-all-nationals-deported/734332/21 "2015-10-12T22:09:00Z")

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> [@Pantastic](#):
>
> The 11,000 were all of German descent Jtur, I’m not really sure what you or Doughbag are taking issue with. Fewer people of German descent than Japanese descent were interred, especially if you look by percentage of population, but saying that none were is simply factually incorrect.

Without exploring the details, I would be surprised if anyone was incarcerated or deported for no other reason than that he was German, either by ancestry or citizenship. Those among your 11,000 would certainly have been scrutinized by security agencies and found to be for some specific reason undesirable.

There were probably 25-50 million people of German ancestry in the USA at the time, so the 11,000 was only one out of several thousand. It cannot be compared in any way at all with the incarceration of every American with a Japanese surname.

“Nobody” is not an unreasonable estimate of a number which is ridiculously small in a huge sample, especially when used for a comparison with nearly everybody in a contrasting sample.

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**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-a-legally-declared-war-with-another-country-are-all-nationals-deported/734332/22 "2015-10-12T22:31:49Z")

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> [@solosam](#):
>
> But your fundamental point is accurate. Nowadays we talk about authorizations for military force and other idiotic euphemisms.

They aren’t euphemisms. There are very substantial legal differences in US law between an authorization for the use of military force and a declaration of war. For example, the Alien Enemy Act, which I mentioned earlier, along with numerous other provisions of law, are only triggered under a declaration of war.

And just to anticipate the next issue, authorizations for force are not new. In fact, Congress passed three of them before passing the first declaration of war against Britain in 1812.

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**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-a-legally-declared-war-with-another-country-are-all-nationals-deported/734332/23 "2015-10-12T23:00:29Z")

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> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Generally they are Interned for the duration. The Diplomats get to leave…\*

Diplomats may not get to leave right away, but they’re treated a lot better than ordinary foreigners. After the US entered the war the German, Japanese, & Italian legations we put under house arrest at a luxury resort until they could be exchanged with their counterparts (also detained in resorts) via neutral Portuguese intermediaries.

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