German and Italian Americans, Internment of

Immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527 in accordance with the Enemy Alien Act of 1798, designating Japanese, German, and Italian nationals, respectively, as enemy aliens within the United States. In addition to the relocation and internment of thousands of Japanese Americans under the provisions of Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942, many resident aliens of Italian and German origin were similarly identified in a number of areas in the country and placed under varying degrees of restriction.

The Alien Registration Act of 1940 had required all aliens over the age of 13 to register with the Department of Justice and to report on changes in name, address, or employment. This move enabled the FBI and other agencies to locate more easily any alien deemed suspicious or a possible threat to domestic security. Within a month of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Department of Justice, in response to fears of further attacks from the Pacific, designated certain areas, primarily on the U.S. West Coast, as forbidden or restricted. In those designated areas, enemy aliens abided by strict curfew laws and could travel only under severe constraints, which sometimes required crossing certain neighborhood streets only with permission and a military escort.

Throughout the country, nearly 700,000 Italian resident aliens came under scrutiny. Many were required to surrender radios, binoculars, cameras, and flashlights to authorities after raids on their homes. By the end of February 1942, more than 10,000 designated Italian enemy aliens had been relocated inland or away from militarily sensitive shorefront communities, from Oregon to southern California—effectively closing down the coastal fishing industry. Several hundred German and Italian aliens from the West Coast were considered dangerous enough to be interned under military guard as far inland as Minnesota.

Some zealous military and government figures at that time had proposed widening the focus of relocation activities to target millions of American citizens of German and Italian ancestry on both coasts. However, the likely logistical drain on the U.S. military to supply enough guards for the many internment centers that would be required, combined with the inevitable economic disruption such a plan would entail, soon brought an end to such notions. President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9106 of March 20, 1942 exempted certain classes of German and Italian aliens from restrictions and opened the door to their becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. In the end, the internment (under the administration of the War Relocation Authority and the Immigration and Naturalization Service) of nearly 11,000 German and more than 3,500 Italian aliens in remote camps (as well as a number of their dependent family members who were naturalized or born citizens) was modest in comparison with that of the more than 120,000 Japanese [Page 313]Americans who were forced into desolate “relocation centers.” Germans and Italians, nevertheless, viewed their internment as equally unjust and arbitrary.

In late June 1942, with the prospect of enemy attack on the U.S. West Coast diminishing, the Western Defense Command cancelled all territorial restrictions, allowing thousands of Italian aliens to return from regional exile, though they remained under curfew and travel restrictions. On October 12, 1942, the status of “enemy” alien was lifted from Italians and exemption from arrest was expanded to cover further special groups of German and Italian aliens, primarily those over 70 years of age, the ill or infirm, and relatives of U.S. servicemen killed in the line of duty, many of whom were themselves aliens. In response to Italy's surrender on September 8, 1943, and its new status of “co-belligerent” under the terms of its armistice with the Allies, U.S. officials released more than half the remaining interned Italian aliens and directed that all Italian aliens previously excluded from security zones on the East and West coasts could return to their homes, except for those who still professed fascist sympathies.

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