Chronology of Internment 1943

Winter
Winter 1943:The number of evacuees at relocation centers peaks at about 107,000.
March
March 11, 1943:The director of the WRA sends a letter to the Secretary of War in which he recommends an immediate relaxation of the exclusion order against persons of Japanese descent. In a letter of May 10, 1943, the Secretary of War said he would not consider the WRA director’s recommendation until the “vicious, well-organized, pro-Japanese minority group[s]” were removed from the relocation centers.
May
May 14, 1943: Dillon S. Myer, director of the War Relocation Authority, issues a statement which says that the relocation centers “are undesirable institutions and should be removed from the American scene as soon as possible. Life in a relocation center is an unnatural and un-American sort of life. Keep in mind that the evacuees were charged with nothing except having Japanese ancestors; yet the very fact of their confinement in relocation centers fosters suspicion of their loyalties and adds to their discouragement. It has added weight to the contentions of the enemy [the Empire of Japan] that we are fighting a race war-that this nation preaches democracy and practices racial discrimination.”
June
June 1943: The United States Supreme Court rules unanimously in Hirabayashi v. United States that a Japanese-American citizen must obey the curfew regulations promulgated by the Western Defense Command. One of the concurring opinions notes that “Today is the first time, so far as I am aware, that we have sustained a substantial restriction of the personal liberty of citizens of the United States based on the accident or race or ancestry…. It bears a melancholy resemblance to the treatment accorded to [Jews] in Germany.”Ca. June 1943: The Tule Lake relocation center is selected as the place where evacuees perceived to be loyal to Japan rather than to the United States, often on very imperfect evidence, are to be segregated. About 9,000 evacuees were moved to Tule Lake from the other nine relocation centers in September and October, 1943. The center eventually housed about 18,000 evacuees.