Approximately 110,000 people ended up in American internment camps, on the territory of the continental United States.
Not many know today that the Americans established internment camps during World War II, on the territory of the United States themselves. Namely, they decided, just in case, to put the Japanese who lived in U.S. at that time in internment camps, so as not to constitute a threat to national security.
Japanese and also American citizens of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps, so it was done according to racial criteria. It is estimated that about 110,000 Japanese got into the camps, most of whom lived along the Pacific coast, where the threat seamed the greatest.
The U.S. government of Ronald Reagan apologized for these actions in 1988, stating that they were encouraged by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and errors of political leadership. Former prisoners of war and their descendants were awarded damages worth over 1.6 billion dollars.
