INTERNMENT CAMPS — PAST AND FUTURE

October 30, 2024. Ben Murphy

During the Spring and Summer of 1942, the U.S. government built some 75 prisons of various designs in response to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, signed on February 19, 1942, every person of Japanese ancestry — American citizens included — living in the West Coast states (CA, OR, WA) were removed from their homes with just 6 days’ notice, and incarcerated in hastily built facilities, called Assembly Centers, within six weeks of the executive order being signed. These fifteen Centers were constructed near or within racetracks and fairgrounds by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Col. Karl Bendetson, a staff officer in Major General John L. DeWitt’s Fourth Army headquarters, was given the mission to remove all persons of Japanese heritage from the entire West Coast — adults, children, the aged and infirm, and even orphans — at “maximum speed and minimum cost”.

Under Col. Bendetsen’s direction, the logistics planning experts on DeWitt’s staff developed intricate plans. The entire West Coast of America, from the Canadian border in the north to the Mexican border in the south was divided into 108 “exclusion zones”.

Each exclusion zone was defined to include the homes of about 1,000 persons of Japanese ancestry. From March through August 1922, as each exclusion zone was scheduled to be emptied of its Japanese population, residents were instructed to gather at a certain location, there to be put on buses or trains and sent to one of the assembly centers. The military’s transportation planning was complex, detailed and highly successful.

This seems to indicate the Army know where they all lived. It may indeed have known, as the Bureau of the Census in late 1942 duplicated the punched cards containing census data on every Japanese person living in the U.S. and gave it to the Army for war-related use. Although this was illegal, it was not challenged at the time.

Throughout the late Spring and early Summer of 1942, 112,000 Japanese persons, both citizens and non-citizens, lived in these assembly centers in frightening conditions; the food was inadequate in quantity and unhealthful and unpleasant, medical facilities were minimal, toilet and showers were woefully inadequate. Detainees were subjected to constant inspections day and night; the mail was censured, visits from friends or business associates were limited. There were no schools.

As the health and morale of the Japanese in these assembly centers deteriorated alarmingly, the U.S. Engineers began searching for suitable locations in the inland western states for more permanent incarceration camps again “at maximum speed and minimum cost”. These facilities were called “Relocation Centers”.

Blueprints for the construction of the ten relocation centers that were ultimately built were modified drawings of temporary housing designed to quarter soldiers located behind committed combat divisions in Europe. Somewhat more robust than the construction of the assembly centers, the infrastructure of the relocation centers were still inadequate. Labor for completing the construction of these minimal facilities was provided by the prisoners themselves.

What did it cost the Government to build these more permanent facilities? From my extensive research on the history of one of the ten relocation centers built at that time—the Heart Mountain Relocation Center—it cost $5,100,000 (in 1942 dollars) to build a facility designed to imprison 11,000 people, and which was occupied by the prisoners for three years and three months. Overall, it cost the government $56,000,000 (in 1942 dollars) to construct the ten camps.

Another cost to the government for incarcerating these people was the expense of feeding them. It cost $0.45 per ration; that is, it took this amount to feed one person for one day in 1942. Today a ration costs $8.70. Thus, it cost $50,400 per day (in 1942 dollars) to feed the 112,000 persons who were ultimately incarcerated. The Japanese-Americans were imprisoned for 1,185 days (3 years and 3 months), so during this confinement it cost the government $59.7 million dollars (in 1942 dollars) to feed them.

While the Pearl Harbor attack was the catalyst that triggered the mass imprisonment of a single ethnic class of people by the government in 1942, racial prejudice against persons of Asian descent existed before the war, particularly in California. This animosity arose as the nation struggled with two conflicting objectives; on the one hand, the nation sought sources of cheap labor, which Asian immigrants provided. On the other hand, there was the desire to protect the white race from the contaminating presence of the yellow race.

Fast-forward eighty years to 2024 and conditions in America appear frighteningly like those in 1942.

In the decades after World War II, millions of people have entered the nation illegally, many crossing the southern border from Mexico. As it was before the war, those same two mutually exclusive objectives prevail; the need for cheap foreign labor (to pick strawberries, tend lawns, babysit kids, and build houses) versus the contaminating effects on the culture of the white race.

And, as in 1942, there is a triggering event that unleased this latent racism – the appearance of Donald Trump onto the political stage.

And, as in 1942, Americans are considering a proposal to build prison camps to incarcerate a targeted ethnic class of people.

A second Trump administration promises “the largest deportation operation in American history”.

What would it take?

Let’s assume a ‘worse case’ scenario: the deportation of all persons residing in the U.S. illegally. It’s estimated that there are approximately 11,000,000 undocumented non-citizens in the U.S. today. A Trump administration, therefore, may plan to deport 11 million persons in its 4-year term in office. Let’s assume that means that 2.75 million undocumented aliens would be identified and deported annually. What would it cost to do this?

Does the government know where all these 11 million targeted persons live? It does not. But for now, let’s assume the government does know and continue.

The government would need to detain 2.75 million people identified for deportation each year while it prepares to remove them from the country. As stated above, the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, designed to house 11,000 persons cost $5.1 million (in 1942 dollars) to build. Due to inflation, it would take $98.6 million to build a Heart Mountain-like prison today. It will require 250 of these camps similar to the Heart Mountain facility to house 2.75 million undocumented immigrants (2.75 million/11,000) to be deported in a year. The total cost to build them is $24.7 billion ($98.6 for one camp x 250 camps).

Once detained in these camps, they need to be fed. If it costs $8.70 to feed one person for one day; it will cost $23.9 million ($8.70 x 2.75 million people) to feed them for ONE DAY. If these immigrants are removed from their camps on a linear basis throughout the year, then the total cost to feed them for a year would be $4.35 billion for a year. To feed all 11,000,000 of them over a four-year period would cost $17.4 billion ($4.35 billion x 4 years).

The Trump administration plans to deport them by flying them back to their country of origin. What will this cost?

Assume that aircraft like the Boeing 737-800, with a capacity of 189 passengers will be used, and assume the total roundtrip miles per trip to a home country is 3,300 miles. The 737-800 flies at 558 mph. It costs $12,000/hour to operate a 737-800. Thus, a sortie (one roundtrip per plane) would cost $71,000 (3,300 miles / 558mph x 12,000).

To fly 2.75 million undocumented immigrants on 737-800s would require 14,550 sorties (2.75 million total / 189 passengers per trip) at $71,000 per sortie, or $1.03 billion each year. For the entire population – $4.13 billion.

Totaling it all up a grand total of $46.2 billion is the result ($24.7 real estate; $17.4 billion subsistence; transportation $4.13). Missing from this total is the manpower cost. If labor is assumed to be half the cost of the goods/services provided, then the total cost may by around $63 billion.

What does this grand total mean? It means that it is practically impossible to remove the 11 million undocumented immigrants in a tightly planned mammoth operation in four years – impossible, probably, given any reasonable time.

How will the Trump administration implement “the largest deportation operation in American history”? It is not known, but recurring references to “unannounced raids” can be seen in all the media. Perhaps, unlike in 1942 where people with Japanese ancestry were given a week’s notice to their evacuation, this time, no notice will be given.

I suggest a practical, quick, humane, and fiscally rational solution to removing these 11 million undocumented immigrants from the country – document them.

Sure, they have entered the U.S. illegally and “amnesty” is anathema to a lot of folks, but it solves the stated problem. The undocumented immigrants could earn a visa or green card based on some sort of point system. A person gets so-many points if he/she has lived here for ten years – more for 20, etc; another few points if he/she has no criminal record; more if he/she holds a job; more for volunteer work or other civic activity, etc.

And provide immigrants a pathway to citizenship.