To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.ĭeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor. Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. One-third of Hawaii’s population was of Japanese descent. In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.Ĭoncurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband. On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets. Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.Ĭanada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Then Roosevelt’s executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.
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