The Executive Order 9066 - Essay Example

Running Head: History Executive Order 9066 President Roosevelt signed the well-known and notorious Executive Order 9066 on the 19th of February, 1942. This particular order granted a seamless power to the War department and they were self autonomous in any kind of orders related to the military exclusion areas. An important point here to mention is that they did not pointed specifically a particular group of people; however this order was exclusively used to intern Japanese-Americans of the country.

Till the year 1943, a huge number, counted to be approximately 110,000, of American people with Japanese descent were forced to leave their homes and transferred to the camps in the remote areas, mainly inland, of the United States (Keith, 2000). As far as the legitimacy of this order is concerned and its place in the constitution of the United States, the constitutionality of the order and the establishment of the internment camps was immediately called into question as soon as the order was signed and forced to be acted upon.

An important case regarding the executive order of 1942 came in the United States Supreme Court in the year 1944, named as in Korematsu v The United States. In this particular case, however, the constitutionality of the order was upheld by the court due to military requirement and obligation. But later in the same year, the court also implied the statement in Ex Parte Endo, that any one who has proven his/her loyalty towards the United States of America cannot, in any case, be incarcerated. Due to the unbalanced swerve of the lawsuits and the great public reaction regarding the constitutionality of the Executive order and the camps, the government ceased them before the war could even came to an end.

Moreover, the criticism on the order increased in the decades that followed and the numerous victims demanded compensation and redressing for their fatalities and sufferings. So, as a result, the Congress established a commission regarding the relocation and internment of the Japanese-Americans to investigate thoroughly about the relocation programs. The result of the investigation was presented before the Congress after two years of the establishment of the committee. They concluded the whole investigation in the report “Personal Justice Denied”, which stated that the relocation programs were biased and motivated in terms of racism and wartime panic and frenzy.

By the year 1988, the Congress approved the reimbursement of the payments and also issued official apology letters to the victims of that incident. President Roosevelt’s decision about the internment of the Japanese-Americans remains controversial till date and there are different thoughts of school on this subject. Those people who disagree with President’s decision about the relocation point out the fact that during the whole duration of the World War II, not even a single Japanese-American was sentenced of reconnaissance.

The critics of the decision also argue that a major number of the officials who took part in the relocation program were not even in the know of the intelligence information that even pointed about the presence of any kind of Japanese-American spy network operating within the country. After the incident of September 11th, when the Arab-Americans were thought to be becoming the next victims of the racial profiling, the argument of the critics became significantly relevant again (Greg, 2001). A new controversy was stirred up by the Congressman, named Howard Coble, in the year 2003, with his controversial response to a caller on the national radio who wished to see the Arab-Americans interned from the country.

The Congressman replied quite clearly that he would never support and become a part of such program or measure, but at the same time he also agreed to the point that he was FDR’s decision regarding the internment of the Japanese-Americans was quite correct. But at the same time, the Congressman specified to the nation that a great majority of the Japanese-Americans were not convicted of being the enemies of the United States, some of them genuinely meant to harm the United States in any way possible.

The groups on both the sides of the Executive Order 9066 have strong opinions and that it cannot be correctly said as if that decision was legitimate or not as many incidents that support this order are qualitatively same as those that go against this decision. While all these opinions are quite controversial in their nature, they all point towards a fact that needs to be pondered upon and that is to find a better and reliable way deal with the security issues of the country. List of References Robar, Keith. 2000. Intelligence, internment & relocation: Roosevelt's Executive order 9066 : how top secret "MAGIC" intelligence led to evacuation.

Seattle, Wash: Kikar Publications. Robinson, Greg. 2001. By order of the president: FDR and the internment of Japanese Americans. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.