Final answer:
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans as a wartime measure following the attack on Pearl Harbor. This was a significant infringement on the civil rights of U.S. citizens and permanent residents of Japanese descent. It has been recognized as an injustice, leading to subsequent apologies and reparations.
Step-by-step explanation:
Executive Order 9066 and Its Impacts
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced relocation and internment of around 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast. This executive action was a response to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent wave of paranoia and racist assumptions directed at Japanese Americans. It was widely perceived as a violation of civil rights, as a significant portion of those interned were U.S. citizens, and others were permanent residents who were denied the possibility of citizenship due to laws like the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924. The implementation of the order resulted in Japanese Americans being sent to internment camps in various states such as Arkansas, California, and Wyoming, and has since been recognized as a grave injustice in American history.
Subsequent legal challenges to the order's constitutionality, such as Hirabayashi v. United States and Korematsu v. United States, saw the Supreme Court at the time uphold the curfews and exclusion orders, albeit controversially. It was not until decades later that the U.S. government formally apologized and made reparations for the internment. This period represents one of the most stark violations of civil liberties in 20th-century U.S. history, underlining the dangers of letting fear and prejudice override Constitutional protections.