Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles. On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets. In January, the arrestees were transferred to facilities in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war. Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband. One-third of Hawaii’s population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded. Some Japanese residents were arrested and 1,500 people—one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii—were sent to camps on the U.S. mainland.
Seventy-four days after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066. The order forced over 110,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes in California, Washington, and Oregon. They were sent to live in one of ten detention camps in desolate parts of the United States.
