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Why did President Franklin D. Roosevelt issue Executive Order 9066 after the attack on Pearl Harbor?

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Japanese American internment: dispossession — Executive Order 9066 Restaurant “under new management” as a result of the U.S. government's relocation order for Japanese Americans during World War II.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This order granted the secretary of war and his commanders the authority to designate military areas and exclude any individuals from them.1

In the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, suspicion fell upon Japanese American communities on the West Coast. The U.S. Department of the Treasury froze the assets of those born in Japan, and the Department of Justice arrested approximately 1,500 Japanese American leaders. Military commanders, concerned about national security due to the proximity of Japanese American populations to vital war assets along the Pacific coast, petitioned for intervention. This led to Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, which was quickly applied to virtually the entire Japanese American population on the West Coast, leading to their forced relocation to internment camps. While other groups, such as those of Italian and German descent, also faced internment, the measures against Japanese Americans were more sweeping.123