"Inevitably, war creates situations which Americans would not countenance in times of peace, such as the internment of men and women who were considered potentially dangerous to America's national security."
-INS, Department of Justice, 1946 Report
Texas played a significant role in World War II. Thousands worked in war industries such as oil production and aircraft manufacturing. Sacrifices were made on the home front in many ways such as rationing, scrap driving, and buying war bonds. In service of the war effort, 750,000 Texas men and women joined the military, and the sate hosted more than 65 U.S. Army Air Forces facilities, 35 U.S. Army Ground Forces camps and forts, nearly a dozen naval installations, and 68 prisoner of war camps.
Shocked by the December 7, 1941, Empire of Japan attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that propelled the United States into World War II, one government response to the war was the incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans on the West Coast and the territory of Hawaii. Issei (Japanese-born immigrants who were prohibited by law from becoming U.S. citizens) and Nisei (American-born children who were U.S. citizens by birth) were significantly impacted by war hysteria. More than 120,000 Issei and Nisei were moved, primarily, to War Relocation Authority
camps across the country. These internees shared a common loss of freedom with the thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian Americans and Enemy Aliens detained in Department of Justice (DOJ) camps through the Enemy Alien Control Unit Program. Texas hosted three temporary detention centers in Houston, San Antonio, and Laredo; three DOI Enemy Alien confinement camps administered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Crystal City, Kenedy and Seagoville, and two U.S. Army "temporary confinement camps" at Dodd Field near Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio and Fort Bliss in El Paso.
The government's authority over Enemy Aliens and, by circumstance, their American-born children came from United Stares Code, Title 50, Section 21, Restraint, Regulation, and Removal, which allowed for the arrest and detention of Enemy Aliens during war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Proclamation No. 2525 on December 7, 1941 and Proclamations No. 2526 and No. 2527 on December 8, 1941—modeled on the Enemy Alien Act of 1798—collectively stated,
"All natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of [Japan, Germany and Italy], being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be in the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies."
Prior to these presidential
proclamations, the United States government realized the high probability that it eventually would be involved in war, regardless of the strong isolationist feelings the public generally held prior to December 7, 1941. In preparation, both the DOJ, through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the State Department, through the Special War Problems Program, produced detention lists. This system indexed thousands of people as potentially dangerous individuals in time of war who were residing in the United States and Central and South America. With this questionable legal foundation in place, the FBI began arresting American citizens, and Enemy Aliens from Axis nations in America, as early as the night of December 7, 1941 and placed them in detention centers. By January 1942, all individuals classified as Enemy Aliens were required to register at local post offices. They were fingerprinted, photographed, and required to carry photo-bearing Enemy Alien Registration Cards at all times.
Early in 1942, the DOJ established a hi-level organization, which handled the individual cases of Enemy Aliens: The Enemy Alien Control Unit in Washington, D.C. and an Enemy Alien Hearing Board with branches located in each of the federal judicial districts of the United States (in Texas boards were held in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio). Each Enemy Alien Hearing Board consisted
of three civilian members from the local community, one of whom was an attorney. Representatives of the U.S. Attorney for that district, the INS, and the FBI attended each hearing as well. Enemy Aliens taken into custody were brought before an Enemy Alien Hearing Board and were either released, paroled, or interned for the duration of the war.
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