6. The first detentions took place immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack
While the ships wrecked during the Pearl Harbor attack were still burning, FBI agents and military security personnel arrested in Hawaii more than 1,200 Japanese immigrants – the Issei – holding them in detention cells. Issei were not US citizens, denied the right to become one by law, and thus were not protected by the right of habeas corpus in the eyes of the courts. Eventually the number of Issei taken into custody reached about 5,500, charged with being foreign nationals of a nation at war with the United States. After being screened through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) they were transferred to the Department of Justice for allegedly individual review of each case, the majority of them were then interned in detention camps run by the US Army.
After the removal of General Walter Short ten days after the attack on Pearl Harbor he was replaced by Lieutenant General Delos Emmons as commander of the Army’s Hawaiian Department. Emmons immediately ordered the replacement of American cash with specially printed scrip to be used as a substitute, in case the islands were to be invaded by the Japanese. He also addressed the Japanese community within the islands, promising them that unless there was evidence of disloyalty to the United States they would be treated fairly. He resisted efforts from his superiors and others in Washington to relocate the Japanese Americans in Hawaii to the less populous outer islands, arguing that the equipment, manpower, and time required to do so could be better put to use preparing American forces to fight the Japanese empire. The Japanese in the closest proximity to the buildup of the American fleet and fighting forces in the Pacific were for the most part not relocated or interned.