Reparation fund
failing, suit claims

Former internees
and projects to help them
might not get paid, a
Los Angeles firm says

Crystal Kua
Star-Bulletin

The fund set up to pay reparations to Americans of Japanese ancestry interned during World War II will run out of money before all claims are paid, according to a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in California.

"We want to make sure that anyone who is entitled to a payment gets it," Los Angeles lawyer Christopher Prince said.

Prince, whose firm filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California on behalf of the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations and California resident Joe M. Suzuki, said it's uncertain how many people in Hawaii will be affected by the lawsuit because the government holds the records on who has filed claims.

"The government doesn't want to turn it over," Prince said.

Attempts to reach the Office of Redress Administration, the agency charged with processing the redress claims, were unsuccessful.

The lawsuit alleges that the government "breached its fiduciary duty" by failing to properly invest the $1.65 billion set aside by Congress for a trust fund from which payments would be made.

The Civil Liberties Act was established for a 10-year period beginning in 1988 as a vehicle for the federal government to apologize and make payments to Japanese Americans for uprooting them from their homes and placing them in internment camps during World War II.

The act created the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund to distribute $20,000 payments to individuals who filed claims with the government.

The Treasury Department was supposed to invest trust funds in government bonds at a rate of 5 percent, the lawsuit says.

But because of the government's failure to invest, the fund will run out of cash before all the redress claims are settled, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit also says Congress intended for $50 million of the fund to be used by organizations wishing to fund educational and research projects.

But the lack of investments made only 10 percent of that amount available for these projects.

As a result, only a handful of 135 projects in 20 states and the District of Columbia received the full amount of their requests, the lawsuit says.

Prince said the University of Hawaii requested $77,000 and $96,000 for two separate projects dealing with the internment of Japanese Americans, but each ended up with only $40,000 apiece.

The deadline to submit a claim to the Office of Redress Administration was Aug. 10, and the office is scheduled to close in February.

Prince said the fund currently has less than $6 million. About 474 claims have not yet been paid.

"About 200 people won't be getting their money," Prince said.

An additional 740 Japanese Latin Americans, such as Suzuki, who were brought to this country and interned, are also supposed to get a $5,000 payment out of the fund. But they may not get their money, Prince said.

The lawsuit also wants the court to restore the money lost as a result of the investment failure, which could amount to $200 million, and keep the Office of Redress Administration open until all the claims are settled.