The U.S. government operated two internment camps in New Mexico. After Roosevelt signed an Executive Order and the roundup of Japanese-Americans began in California, New Mexico was named as a site for internment camps.
The camps were encircled by twelve-foot-high barbed-wire fences and eleven guard towers with searchlights. The guards were heavily equipped with different arms and weapons, such as rifles, side arms, and tear gas.
The interment camp had two phases. The first one was in September 1942 when Japanese immigrants from California who were all sent to War Relocation Authority camps were held in a temporary detention facility. The other phase began in February 1943 and included other internees transferred from U.S. Army camps, such as issei, nisei, and kibei "troublemakers" from the Tule Lake segregation center.
On 1945, tensions erupted at Santa Fe and there were weeks of conflict between the camp administration and a group of internees from Tule Lake. Guards fired tear gas into a crowd and began beating the internees. Four were seriously injured and the guards isolated some as others were transferred to the high-security facility at Fort Stanton, New Mexico.
