Executive Order 9066

Executive Order 9066 was a presidential executive order signed and issued during World War 2 by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This act was encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, it authorized the interment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens of Japan. It banned any citizen from a fifty to sixty mile wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. They would transport these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California. Something that is not known is that the same executive order applied to smaller number of residents of the United States who were of Italian or German descent. Around 3,200 resident aliens of Italian background were arrested and around 300 were interned. Around 11,000 Germans were arrested and 5,000 were interned. The war time measures applied to the Japanese were worse and more sweeping. Overall this was created because the army could evacuate any persons that they considered a threat to national security. Over 120,000 Japanese people were forced to relocate to one of the 10 different internment camps.