PHOENIX — The year is 1943. World War II continues to rage as the Allies and the Axis powers stray further apart.

George Abe (pronounced AH-bay), along with the rest of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, is stationed in the Carolinas waiting for deployment. One evening, Abe and several members of his unit arrive at a restaurant for dinner, all wearing their uniforms and looking for a place to sit down and eat. They couldn’t have been more surprised when they were denied service because they were Japanese Americans.

“Wasn’t he furious,” Abe’s daughter, La Verne Abe Harris, said over 80 years later. “He said that he looked at them and realized that he was putting his life on the line for these people who wouldn’t serve him dinner. He wasn’t mad at them; he was sad for them. He said they were raised by their parents to be ignorant, and that really stuck with me.”

During World War II, Abe’s family made up a small group of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans held in internment camps. This was in accordance with the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allowed the U.S. president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation. The act was invoked as a part of Executive Order 9066, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed on Feb. 19, 1942, in reaction to the Pearl Harbor attacks as well as the impending war.

Several weeks ago, President Donald Trump brought the Alien Enemies Act back to detain and deport all Venezuelan migrants suspected as members of the Tren de Aragua prison gang, targeting them as if they were wartime enemies of the U.S. government. The news hit home for many, especially those connected to Abe.

“He believed that we all really have much more in common than we have that’s different, and we always raised our kids believing that it’s really an interesting world if you get to know people who look differently than you and think differently than you,” said Abe Harrise, a clinical professor at Arizona State University. “You don’t necessarily have to believe what they believe, but it at least gives you a different perspective, and maybe a little bit of empathy.”

After originally attempting to enlist in the Air Force and the Navy, Abe was rejected by both branches due to his heritage. He ended up serving in the Army and rose through the initial ranks at a rapid pace.

Abe volunteered to defend his country, and in return his family was incarcerated, convicted of nothing but their racial background. Few things provoked Abe, who had always been a stoic man of great character, but he could never understand the treatment of Japanese Americans during the war.

The act has only been used three times previously, all during major wars. World War II was the last time that it had been invoked until March 15 of this year.

“I agree with deporting criminals and gang members who immigrate to the United States because I don’t believe they have any business here,” Abe Harris said. “What I have an issue with is not vetting and not having due process of law before the immigrants are shipped out, because even one innocent person could be caught up in that mess, and that’s one person too many.”

Abe Harris grew up listening to plenty of her father’s stories, but some of the most memorable ones involved him and his family’s experiences during the Second World War. At first, Abe Harris didn’t know what to think when she heard that the Alien Enemies Act had been invoked again after several decades.

“One thing that my family always talked about was that all of us are immigrants in this country except for the Native Americans,” Abe Harris said. “So when this act was invoked, it brought back some very uncomfortable memories.”

Abe Harris's son, Rocky Harris, was close with his grandfather as well and now many of those same stories have been passed down multiple generations. Despite his family’s history with the act, Harris does his best to remain objective and is careful not to make assumptions based on the past.

“I try not to judge, in the moment, when a policy is being implemented and instead wait to see the impact of it over time,” said Rocky, who is the chief of sport and athlete services on the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “What we saw with my grandfather’s situation is that it brought about a lot of big challenges that the Japanese American community dealt with for many years and really many generations.”

Abe Harris also tries to separate her family’s past from her opinion on current events as much as she can, however, she can’t help but question the true intentions behind the act this time around.

“When I heard that that act was being invoked for the first time since WWII, and all of those people were being deported, I asked myself, ‘If this act is supposed to become live during a war, what war is the United States fighting?’” La Verne said. “And then I came up with an answer — It’s a war of truth vs. lies.”

Abe Harris said she believes telling the truth should always be the priority, even if it’s ugly, and she doesn’t like the direction that the act is heading this time, either.

“When I think about it, I think Congress needs to repeal this act,” Abe Harris said. “There’s just too many questions and too much uncertainty surrounding all of it, and I just can’t see a world where innocent people aren’t harmed by it somehow. I think this should be stopped before innocent people are affected, but it might already be too late.”

Abe Harris and her son can only hope the Alien Enemies Act is used carefully this time — they don’t want to see any other innocent people caught in the collateral like their family was years ago.

After the war, Abe was stationed in Germany, where he met his future wife and Abe Harris's mother, Hildegard Seijok. He went on to serve in the Korean War and then returned to the United States and started a family. In 1966, the military transferred Abe to Arizona. He taught in the ROTC program at Arizona State University and then became a policeman for the university. Eventually, Abe retired and lived out the rest of his life happily with his loved ones in Arizona before passing away in 1997 at the age of 77.

Looking back, Harris acknowledges the injustices that occurred, but he likes to focus on the one positive that came from it all: His grandfather and the rest of his family were able to learn from the mistakes of others, and now their family is the better for it.

“At the end of the day, it played a small part in making my grandfather the person that he was,” Harris said. “It’s really important to get along with, respect and learn from people that are different from you. That was the way my grandfather lived his life. I think that helped all of us have a good perspective on how to be a positive citizen, friend, and family member.”