8. DeWitt defended his actions in testimony to Congress
General DeWitt, as part of an ongoing campaign on his part to justify the relocation and detention of Japanese Americans, made his opinions and prejudices crystal clear. “I don’t want any of them here”, he testified. “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese”. He added in his testimony, “But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map”. Earl Warren, then Attorney General of California and much later the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court supported DeWitt and lobbied Congress for the removal of all Japanese, regardless of citizenship. On March 24, 1942, with the support of the majority in Congress and the President, Dewitt issued the first Civilian Exclusion Order, giving the Japanese Americans on Bainbridge Island until March 30 to prepare for removal.
Three days later DeWitt issued another order which forbade any Japanese Americans from leaving the island, which was designated Military Area 1. A curfew was established for the Japanese. In May, DeWitt issued another order which directed the Japanese to report to assembly areas where they were to be held until permanently relocated to internment camps. The persons affected by the orders were defined as being anyone having 1/16 Japanese ancestry, and included other Asians from Taiwan and Korea and their descendants (Taiwan and Korea were Japanese possessions at the time). The assembly centers were operated by the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), which was a military operation of the US Army. The civil service operated War Relocation Authority (WRA) was tasked with running the Relocation Centers, the official name of what became known as the internment camps.