Executive Order 9066: Internment of Japanese Americans

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The language of Executive Order 9066 does not suggest its historical importance or its life-changing impact on the Japanese communities in America in the late winter and spring of 1942. It is written in bland, uninflected prose, and it reads like dozens of other orders that flowed from the White House in the first months of World War II—all of them are work-a-day directives designed to put the nation on a war footing.

The document is directed toward dampening the hysteria that had marked the public discussion on how to secure the West Coast from enemy attack. The Japanese population on the coast and in Hawaii, the executive order's target, is not mentioned anywhere in the document. Also not mentioned are the civil rights issues the Justice Department had raised in earlier discussions concerning how much authority the military would be granted in securing the nation's defenses. The expansion of authority under Executive Order 9066 is justified by references to statutory precedents or imperatives and by an appeal to the inherent powers of the president as commander in chief.

Introduction

The first paragraph states that to win the war the United States must take every step to guard against espionage and sabotage by its enemies. What will be guarded is found in the act of April 20, 1918, as amended in 1940 and 1941, known collectively in the United States Code as Title 50, “War and National Defense,” which describes in specific detail a broad range of war-related industries, farms, transportation and port facilities, and military installations essential to wartime national defense.

Authority

The second paragraph establishes the president's authority to provide for the national defense. Because the president is chief executive, he is responsible for carrying out the laws of the United States as noted in Article II of the Constitution. As commander in chief of the army and navy, his constitutionally established role is to ensure civilian control of the military, a principle that reaches back to the Continental Congress and the American Revolution.

Main Provisions

Later in the second paragraph the president authorizes the secretary of war and such military commanders as the secretary chooses to “prescribe,” or designate, areas containing war-related industries, military bases, and the like from which “any or all persons” may be excluded, denied entry, or otherwise restricted at the “discretion” of the secretary or his commanders. This is the key provision that will be used to remove all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast in spring 1942, even though no specific race or ethnic group is identified.

The president requires the War Department to provide food, shelter, and transportation to any persons excluded from the areas to be designated until other arrangements are made. On March 18, 1942, Executive Order 9102 transferred virtually all custodial responsibilities for the evacuees from the War Department to a civilian agency, the War Relocation Authority, which thenceforth would manage the camps.

The second paragraph also gives the military the authority to change the restricted areas designated earlier by the Justice Department under Proclamation 2525, dated December 7, 1941, and Proclamations 2526 and 2527, dated December 8, 1941. In those orders, the president invokes the Alien Enemies Act (Chapter 3 of U.S. Code Title 50); identifies Japanese, German, and Italian aliens as subject to restraint and removal as enemies of the United States; and directs the attorney general to identify areas from which they would be barred. Those proclamations also require the aliens as individuals to register with the FBI and contain a long list of prohibited behaviors, contraband items, and travel restrictions, the violation of which could lead to arrest and internment.

In the third paragraph the military in each designated area is authorized to do whatever is necessary to enforce the provisions of Executive Order 9066, including accepting the assistance of state and local law enforcement agencies. On March 21, 1942, Congress passed Public Law 503, which provided specific criminal sanctions and penalties to enforce Executive Order 9066. In the fourth paragraph the president directs the executive departments, or the cabinet, and the federal agencies under their authority to give the military any assistance that might be needed in providing custodial care for the evacuees.

The fifth paragraph of the document ends with three disclaimers: (1) Nothing in Executive Order 9066 will limit the authority given to the secretary of war and the secretary of the navy by Executive Order 8972, dated December 12, 1941, to set up guards and patrols to protect national defense industries, installations, or utilities; (2) nothing will it limit in any way the authority of the FBI to investigate alleged acts of sabotage; and (3) the order will not interfere with the Justice Department's control of enemy aliens, as defined in Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527.