here's my essay I wrote for this question on edge:
Was President Roosevelt justified in ordering Executive Order 9066? No, he was not. All it did was result in the internment of Japanese American citizens, even though that wasn't what was specified in the order. Roosevelt was not justified in making this decision because it led to splitting up families, arresting innocent people, and denying their rights.
The Executive Order 9066 authorized the military to keep out “any or all persons from areas of the United States designated as military areas.” However, the order did not identify any particular group, but Roosevelt used it to remove and imprison Japanese and Japanese-American citizens. It ended up condemning almost 70% of imprisoned Japanese-American Citizens. Even if they were American but had some sort of Japanese descent, they would incarcerate them. All of this was okay because of the Executive Order 9066.
Where did these innocent citizens go when they were removed and imprisoned? They were brought into wartime camps and were suspended of their rights under Fifth Amendment. The order Roosevelt passes, allowed the suspension and so, the Japanese Americans were denied their rights. The Fifth Amendment states that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.' This is a world-wide known right. Yet, Roosevelt just takes it away because he simply feels he needs to? That's scary knowing that the president could take everybody's rights away in a second if they wanted to. Not is it only scary, but it is not justified.
However, many people believe that Roosevelt was under good reasoning when passing the order. Some people will argue it helped public safety. People who are on that side of this argument tend to believe that he was also justified because of the hatred and fear against the Japanese Americans after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. This theory continued to expand, leading to a common belief that the Japanese-Americans had been of help to the Japanese in planning the attack.
Despite those beliefs, Roosevelt was impartially wrong in his ordering of Executive Order 9066. While it may have been true that many Americans were fearful of the Japanese, this is not a reason of why Roosevelt was justified. This is because they did not only intern Japanese and Japanese-Americans. They also interned thousands of others including Italian and German-Americans. So, even though people were supposedly scared of the Japanese, fear was obviously not the only reason they interned innocent American citizens.
It's understandable how, on impulse, people can believe that Roosevelt was justified in interning millions of Americans. But, if you look deeper into it, that is clearly not the case. Executive Order 9066 was an inhumane and unjustified order that ruined many Americans lives and tore apart thousands of families. So, in conclusion, Roosevelt was not justified in issuing Executive Order 9066.
