Much of the attention attributed to America's internment policies during World War II is concerned primarily with the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. However, what textbooks fail to mention is that Executive Order 9066, which is what permitted the internment of the Japanese, also led to the capture of many Germans and Italians suspected of being an "enemy alien" to the state. Granted these numbers were much smaller than that of the Japanese, a mere 264 Italians were arrested and 1,269 Germans, but they are numbers nonetheless.
Roosevelt also arrested Germans, Japanese, and Italians in many Latin America countries, expanding his authority outside of America's national borders. Under the Enemy Alien Act of 1798, which George W. Bush and Barack Obama have used to arrest present day possible terrorists, Roosevelt detained 4,058 Germans, 2,264 Japanese, and 288 Italians from thirteen different Latin America countries and imprisoned them in the United States. Many of these prisoners went to a secret government internment camp located in Crystal City, Texas. Roosevelt's primary motive for capturing all of these people was that he feared security threats from them. What's perhaps even more unbelievable is the fact that 81 of the people taken as prisoners were Jews who had fled persecution in Europe. The Jacobis, a Jewish family from Columbia, were taken to the Crystal City camp.
A more logical reason behind the internment program was to create an American pool of hostages that Roosevelt could use to exchange for American prisoners in Europe and the Pacific. Roosevelt created a division within the Department of State entitled the "Special War Problems Division," which dealt specifically with prisoner exchanges between the United States and Germany and Japan. Central to the exchanges was the Crystal City internment camp. Many of the prisoners were traded for American officials considerably more "important" than the average individual stuck behind enemy lines. The first and second of the exchanges both took place in Crystal City, the first being in June of 1942 and the second on September 2, 1943. During those two transactions, more than 2,000 Japanese were traded for Americans being held hostage in Japan. In February of 1944, 634 Germans were sent to Germany from Crystal City, and the final exchange of prisoners was made on January 2, 1945 where 428 more Crystal City victims were traded.
Not only did Roosevelt actually implement all of those policies, but the general consensus amongst his advisors, both political and military, was one of support. The only person who was against them was Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor. She believed the problems with immigrants originated from wartime hysteria, having no real foundation or purpose.
I found it shocking that this topic is not commonly addressed when discussing the internment camps of World War II. I certainly had never heard of this before doing some research, and was surprised to find the elaborate secrecy surrounding the entire operation. Last week in class we learned, on a worksheet, that the Japanese rather than the Germans and Italians were put into internment camps simply because they were easier targets. However, the article I found, which I will link below, clearly shows that unfortunately not all German and Italian Americans were safe from imprisonment. If anyone finds other information on prisoners and their exchanges, maybe from the German side of the war, I would be interesting in hearing about it!
http://www.businessinsider.com/5-surprises-about-american-internment-during-world-war-ii-2015-1
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