On January 19th, in 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066 which ordered the removal of resident enemy citizens from certain areas in the West, mostly military ones. This order generated a lot of controversy because it affected a lot of Japanese american citizens, who regardless of their citizenship status, were forced to be relocated into detention camps. The Executive Order 9066 also affected German Americans and Italian Americans, but the vast majority of detentions were made against people of Japanese heritage.
It was on February 19th of 1976 when President Gerald Ford rescinded the Executive Order 9066 by publishing a document called "The American promise" in which it stated that Order 9066 was "a setback to fundamental American principles". This came as the result of an increase in activism and lobbying in Washington for the cause, and the President understood that the public opinion of the country was demanding an action from the Executive Power in favor of civil rights for all American citizens, specially post Vietnam-War scenario.
