- Headline
-
MORE DETENTION CAMPS PLANNED BY GOVERNMENT
- Sub-Headline
- Justice Department Already Has 2,000 Axis Nationals
- Publication Date
- Wednesday, November 19, 1941
- Historical Event
-
FDR Authorizes Incarceration of Japanese Americans
This database includes 2,214 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Location
- Page Section and Number
- 4
- Author/Byline
- JAMES J. STREBIG (AP)
- Article Text
- WASHINGTON, Nov. 19—(AP)—The justice department, which already has more than 2,000 Axis nationals on its hands, is contemplating a three-fold expansion of its alien detention camp system, it was learned yesterday, to make the facilities equal to any sudden war emergency.
The immigration and naturalization service, a unit in the department, now operates camps at Fort Lincoln, N.D., where more than 300 German sailors are held, and Fort Missoula, Mont., which has about 1,000 Italians, mostly seamen.
Double Capacity
The capacities of these camps recently have been doubled, so that they can accommodate more than 2,500.
The service also operates Fort Stanton, N.M., as quarters for 400 German sailors from the scuttled liner Columbus who have the status of distressed seamen.
Still to be provided for are 20 members of the crew and woman who were aboard the Norwegian vessel Busko when it was seized near Greenland in September, and those aboard an unnamed Axis merchantman which the navy announced yesterday was picked up while masquerading as an American flag ship in Atlantic waters ten days ago.
In addition there are several hundred more aliens in custody sabotage charges. A number of these already have been convicted and sent to prison from damaging Axis vessels which had tied up in U.S. ports for the duration of the war.
Five New Camps
The immigration service is considering the purchase of a camp near Sacramento, Calif., with a capacity of 900, a well-informed official disclosed. In addition, it has chosen tentative sites for five new camps.
The sites are secret, but three are in Georgia and one each in Florida and Alabama.
During the World War, the United States arrested 8,500 enemy aliens for detention in this country. Of these, 2,200 were military prisoners, mostly seamen and officers, who were held at Hot Springs, N.C., and 2,300 were civilians who were sent to Fort McPherson, Ga., and Fort Douglas. Utah. The others arrested were paroled.
Million Aliens
Alien registration figures show there are approximately 1,000,000 Italian, German and Japanese nationals in the United States, but about 40 per cent of these have applied for citizenship.
Attorney General Biddle said at a recent press conference there would be no mass arrests in event of war.
In event of hostilities, the war department probably would operate the detention camps, as it did in the last war, and the justice department would determine whom should be held.
The army recently completed a detention camp on Long Island. presumably as a preparedness step. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Carlos G.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: FDR Authorizes Incarceration of Japanese Americans
- Teaching with Documents: Documents and Photographs Related to Japanese Relocation during World War II (National Archives)
- Japanese Relocation and Internment During World War II (National Archives)
- The War Relocation Centers of World War II: When Fear Was Stronger Than Justice (National Park Service)
- The War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II (Harry S Truman Library and Museum)
- Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment (Densho: Preserving Stories of the Past for Generations of Tomorrow)
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