Edward J. Ennis, 82; ACLU Official Fought Interning Japanese-Americans

Edward J. Ennis, a former chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice Department official who directed the nation’s alien enemy control unit during World War II, has died at age 82.

Ennis, who died Sunday of diabetes complications at Lenox Hill Hospital, was ACLU general counsel from 1955 to 1969 and president from 1969 to 1977. During his tenure, he called for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon and later criticized Nixon’s pardon by President Gerald R. Ford.

He also worked to eliminate property-tax exemptions for churches and religious organizations, saying that they were discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Ennis was at the Justice Department for 14 years, working as a general counsel to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

As director of the alien enemy control unit from 1941 to 1946, he administered internment and other internal security matters but strongly opposed the internment of about 70,000 Japanese-Americans early in the war. He later testified on behalf of some of the detainees, saying that inaccuracies had been perpetrated to support the internments.

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1932, Ennis became an assistant U.S. attorney and was involved in defending the constitutionality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation.