Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, the order "authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security" from the West Coast to inland 'relocation centers'. It resulted in the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. Two-thirds of the 125,000 people displaced were U.S. citizens.
Far more Americans of Asian descent were forcibly interned than Americans of European descent, both in total and as a share of their relative populations. German and Italian Americans who were sent to internment camps during the war were sent under the provisions of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
Transcript of Executive Order 9066
The text of Executive Order 9066 was as follows:
Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas
Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104);
Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.
I hereby further authorize and direct the commissioner of War and the Military department Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military personnel Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area here in above authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.
I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services.
This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.
Originating from a proclamation of war that was signed on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, December 7, 1941, and given the rising anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States, Executive Order 9066 was later enacted on February 19, 1942 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to strictly regulate the actions of Japanese Americans in the United States. At this point, Japanese Americans were barred from attaining American citizenship, despite having lived in the United States for generations. This proclamation would eventually lead to strict travel restrictions in the form of curfews for all people of Japanese ancestry, regardless of citizenship status, something which uniquely applied to Japanese Americans.
The order was consistent with Roosevelt's long-time racial views toward Japanese Americans. During the 1920s, for example, he had written articles in the Macon Telegraph opposing white-Japanese intermarriage for fostering "the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood" and praising California's ban on land ownership by the first-generation Japanese. In 1936, while president he privately wrote that, in regard to contacts between Japanese sailors and the local Japanese American population in the event of war, "every Japanese citizen or non-citizen on the Island of Oahu who meets these Japanese ships or has any connection with their officers or men should be secretly but definitely identified and his or her name placed on a special list of those who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp." In addition, during the crucial period after Pearl Harbor the president had failed to speak out for the rights of Japanese Americans despite the urgings of advisors such as John Franklin Carter. During the same period, Roosevelt rejected the recommendations of Attorney General Francis Biddle and other top advisors who opposed the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
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.) Nevertheless, EO 9066 was intended to be applied almost solely to persons of Japanese descent. 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."
Public Law 77-503 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—the law made violations of military orders a misdemeanor punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and one year in prison.
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." 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. 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."