THE EVACUATION AND INTERNMENT of Japanese residents of the west coast during World War II is now regarded as one of the notorious episodes in American legal history, one in which thousands of persons who posed no risk to the American war effort were subjected to curfews, forcibly removed from their homes, and detained in prison camps for the duration of the war and in some instances beyond. Apologies and reparations to surviving victims, and to their descendants, have served as a partial culmination of the affair, but it remains a prominent and awkward episode in our past. Another evacuation and internment of residents of the United States occurred about the same time. Although that episode has received some scholarly treatment, and was described in the report of a 1982 government commission, it remains largely unknown to the general public and to many members of the legal profession. This is a narrative of the episode.

Citation
G. Edward White, The Lost Internment, 14 The Green Bag Second Series 283–300 (2011).