Refugees & Alien Internment in World War II HIS 206

Failure to Admit Jewish Refugees No more than 250,000 refugees from Nazis admitted to U.S. in 1930s-40s Alien Registration Act (1940) required registration & fingerprinting of all aliens Also tightened definition of subversives to include past affiliation Approx. 5 million aliens registered INS moved to Justice Dept. Wilbur Carr & Breckenridge Long in State Dept. used LPC clause to block admission of Jewish refugees Travel visas renewed indefinitely for 15,000 following Kristallnacht Quotas unblocked in fall 1940 FDR invited 32 nations to Evian Conference in 1938, but refused to change or relax immigration laws St. Louis turned back in 1939 The St. Louis in Havana, 1939 Breckenridge Long

The War Refugee Board War Refugee Board (1944) rescued 200,000 Jews Worked with foreign gov’ts Est. refugee camp at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, NY U.S. military refused to bomb Auschwitz, despite bombing nearby factories Hull, Morgenthau & Stimson, March 21, 1944 Registration at Ft. Ontario

Race War in the Pacific

WWII Propaganda Posters

Internment of Japanese Americans 300,000 aliens (1/2 Japanese) rounded up in week after Pearl Harbor FDR issued Executive Order 9066 Feb. 19, ,000 (2/3 U.S. citizens) West coast, but not Hawaii War Relocation Authority ran internment camps Upheld by Supreme Court in Korematsu v. U.S. (1944) Nisei 442 nd Regiment one of the most highly decorated units in WW II

Challenging Internment Hirabayashi v. U.S. (1943) Hirabayashi was U. of Washington student Supreme Court unanimously upheld curfew as reasonable wartime measure Korematsu v. U.S. (1944) Korematsu was U.S.-born welder Court upheld internment 6-3 Roberts, Murphy & Jackson dissented: guilt must be individual, not collective no imminent threat existed Case reopened in 1983 & conviction overturned Historian Peter Irons discovered gov’t has suppressed its own finding that Japanese Americans weren’t threat Pres. Clinton awarded him Medal of Freedom in 1998 Gordon Hirabayashi Fred T. Korematsu

Tule Lake Internment Camp

Going to School at Tule Lake

German & Italian Internment 11,000 German & German Americans interned 4,000 Germans shipped to U.S. from Latin America 2,000 exchanged for American POWs in Germany 1,800 Italians arrested by FBI; 500 interned German internees Camp Kenedy, TX

Crystal City Internment Camp Former FSA camp for migrant farm workers Peak population was 3, 326 in May 1945 Separate sections for German and Japanese internees Closed Nov. 1, 1947