US Supreme Court decision 1943 dealing with wartime legislation restricting the rights of citizens based on national origin. The case was brought in response to special curfews for Japanese-Americans on the US west coast. Hirabayashi charged that this and the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II was a violation of Fifth-Amendment rights.
The Court refused to rule on relocation measures (Korematsu v US 1944) but upheld Congress’s curfew, judging that danger of internal sabotage in the war with Japan warranted this extraordinary measure.