Editing Executive Order 9066 (section)

==Exclusion under the Order==
The text of Roosevelt's order did not use the terms "Japanese" or "Japanese Americans," instead giving officials broad power to exclude "any or all persons" from a designated area. (The lack of a specific mention of Japanese or Japanese Americans also characterized Public Law 77-503, which Roosevelt signed on March 21, 1942, to enforce the order.<ref>Beito, p. 178.</ref>) Nevertheless, EO 9066 was intended to be applied almost solely to persons of Japanese descent. Notably, in a 1943 letter, Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]] reminded Roosevelt that "You signed the original Executive Order permitting the exclusions so the Army could handle the Japs. It was never intended to apply to Italians and Germans."<ref name=weglyn73>{{cite book |title=Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps |publisher=William Morrow & Company |location=New York |last=Weglyn |first=Michi Nishiura |authorlink=Michi Weglyn|year=1976 |page=73|isbn=978-0-688-07996-3}}</ref>

Public Law 77-50<ref name=PL77-503>An act to provide a penalty for violation of restriction or orders with respect to persons entering, remaining in, leaving, or committing any act in military areas or zones. {{USStatute|77|503|56|173|1942|03|21}}.</ref> was approved (after only an hour of discussion in the Senate and thirty minutes in the House) in order to provide for the enforcement of the executive order. Authored by War Department official [[Karl Bendetsen]]—who would later be promoted to Director of the Wartime Civilian Control Administration and oversee the incarceration of Japanese Americans<ref>{{Cite web |title=Records of the United States Wartime Civil Control Administration {{!}} Special Collections |url=https://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/collections/records-united-states-wartime-civil-control-administration |access-date=March 19, 2022 |website=speccoll.library.arizona.edu |archive-date=April 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408030049/https://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/collections/records-united-states-wartime-civil-control-administration |url-status=live }}</ref>—the law made violations of military orders a misdemeanor punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and one year in prison.<ref>{{cite web |last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Public_Law_503/ |title=Public Law 503 |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 20, 2014 |archive-date=July 22, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722021321/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Public_Law_503/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Using a broad interpretation of EO 9066, Lieutenant General [[John L. DeWitt]] issued orders declaring certain areas of the western United States as zones of exclusion under the Executive Order. In contrast to EO 9066, the text of these orders specified "all people of Japanese ancestry."<ref>Beito, p. 179.</ref> As a result, approximately 112,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were evicted from the West Coast of the continental United States and held in American relocation camps and other confinement sites across the country.

Roosevelt hoped to establish concentration camps for Japanese Americans in Hawaii even after he signed Executive Order 9066. On February 26, 1942, he informed Secretary of the Navy Knox that he had "long felt most of the Japanese should be removed from Oahu to one of the other islands." Nevertheless, the tremendous cost, including the diversion of ships from the front lines, as well as the quiet resistance of the local military commander General [[Delos Emmons]], made this proposal impractical, resulting in Japanese Americans in Hawaii never being incarcerated ''en masse''.<ref>Beito, p. 177.</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |title=How Hawaii's Japanese Population Was Spared WWII Internment |url=https://time.com/5802127/hawaii-internment-order/ |access-date=March 19, 2022 |magazine=Time |language=en |archive-date=March 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319174302/https://time.com/5802127/hawaii-internment-order/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Although the Japanese-American population in Hawaii was nearly 40% of the population of the territory and Hawaii would have been first in line for a Japanese attack, only a few thousand people were temporarily detained there. This fact supported the government's eventual conclusion that the mass removal of ethnic Japanese from the West Coast was motivated by reasons other than "military necessity."<ref name=Calisphere/>

Japanese Americans and other Asians in the U.S. had suffered for decades from prejudice and [[Yellow Peril|racially motivated fears]]. Racially discriminatory laws prevented Asian Americans from [[Alien land laws|owning land]], voting, [[People v. Hall|testifying against whites in court]], and set up other restrictions. Additionally, the [[FBI]], [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] and [[Military Intelligence Division]] had been conducting surveillance on Japanese-American communities in Hawaii and the continental U.S. from the early 1930s.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |title=Custodial detention / A-B-C list |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 20, 2014 |archive-date=October 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020034626/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In early 1941, President Roosevelt secretly commissioned a study to assess the possibility that Japanese Americans would pose a threat to U.S. security. The report, submitted one month before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, predicted that in the event of war, "There will be no armed uprising of Japanese" in the United States. "For the most part," the [[Munson Report]] said, "the local Japanese are loyal to the United States or, at worst, hope that by remaining quiet they can avoid concentration camps or irresponsible mobs."<ref name=Calisphere/> A second investigation started in 1940, written by Naval Intelligence officer [[Kenneth Ringle]] and submitted in January 1942, likewise found no evidence of [[fifth column]] activity and urged against mass incarceration.<ref>{{cite web |last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Kenneth%20Ringle/ |title=Kenneth Ringle |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 20, 2014 |archive-date=August 21, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140821213550/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Kenneth%20Ringle/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Both were ignored by military and political leaders.

Over two-thirds of the people of Japanese ethnicity who were incarcerated were American citizens; many of the rest had lived in the country between 20 and 40 years. As a result, most Japanese Americans, particularly the first generation born in the United States (the ''[[Nisei]]''), identified as loyal to the United States of America. In addition, no Japanese-American citizen or Japanese national residing in the United States was ever found guilty of [[sabotage]] or [[espionage]].<ref name="Calisphere">{{cite web |url=http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/jarda/historical-context.html |title=Relocation and Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II |publisher=University of California – Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives |access-date=April 25, 2014 |archive-date=April 26, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140426214946/http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/jarda/historical-context.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

There were 10 of these internment camps across the United States, euphemistically called "relocation centers". There were two in Arkansas, two in Arizona, two in California, one in Idaho, one in Utah, one in Wyoming, and one in Colorado.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation|title=Japanese Relocation During World War II|date=August 15, 2016|website=National Archives|language=en|access-date=March 1, 2019|archive-date=March 1, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190301140007/https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation|url-status=live}}</ref>