Answer: In the days after the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, suspicion fell on Japanese American communities in the western United States. The U.S. Department of the Treasury froze the assets of all citizens and resident aliens who were born in Japan, and the Department of Justice arrested some 1,500 religious and community leaders as potentially dangerous enemy aliens. Because many of the largest populations of Japanese Americans were in close proximity to vital war assets along the Pacific coast, U.S. military commanders petitioned Secretary of War Henry Stimson to intervene. The result was Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066.
Explanation: In 1948 Pres. Harry S. Truman signed the Evacuation Claims Act, which gave internees the opportunity to submit claims for property lost as a result of relocation. Pres. Gerald Ford formally rescinded Executive Order 9066 on February 16, 1976. In 1988 Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act, which stated that a “grave injustice” had been done to Japanese American citizens and resident aliens during World War II. It also established a fund that paid some $1.6 billion in reparations to formerly interned Japanese Americans or their heirs.