Executive Order 9066

Setting the scene

Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorizing the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The order, issued 10 weeks after Pearl Harbor, allowed military commanders to designate 'military areas' from which any persons could be excluded. Though the order did not mention Japanese Americans specifically, it was applied almost exclusively to them on the West Coast.

What happened

General John DeWitt, head of Western Defense Command, ordered the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry—over 120,000 people, two-thirds of whom were American citizens—from California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona. They were sent to 10 remote internment camps in the interior, where they lived in tar-paper barracks behind barbed wire for up to four years. They lost homes, businesses, and farms worth billions in today's dollars. No Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage.

Why it still matters

Executive Order 9066 was upheld by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States (1944), a decision now widely condemned. The order was driven by racism, wartime hysteria, and political pressure, not military necessity. In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, apologizing and providing $20,000 reparations to survivors. The order remains a cautionary tale about how fear can lead democracies to violate their own principles and the importance of protecting civil liberties during crises.

Background

Courts later called the policy unjust.