House OKs Extra $400 Million to Internees

The House has authorized an extra $400 million in federal spending to complete payments to Japanese-Americans who were rounded up on the West Coast and interned during World War II.

The additional money is needed because federal officials underestimated the number of former internees still living. The measure now goes to the Senate, where approval is expected.

In 1988, Congress formally apologized for the mass internment and voted to pay $20,000 to each internee who was alive at that time. Initial estimates were that 60,000 people--among 120,000 who were interned--would be eligible for the payments. Based on this estimate, Congress set aside $1.2 billion for the program, and paychecks were put into the mail, beginning with the oldest internees.

Each internee also received a formal apology from President Bush.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced that the government had miscalculated the number of living internees and that as many as 80,000 former internees were alive when the legislation was enacted.

The longevity estimates were based on “actual charts for Caucasians, and the fact is that Japanese-Americans are living longer than the average Caucasian,” said Tom Keaney, an aide to Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), a sponsor of the new legislation.

Members of Congress and the Bush Administration drew up legislation calling for $400 million in additional funding to complete the repayments. The House passed the bill on a voice vote Monday, and the Senate is expected to approve it without debate in the next two weeks.

“We have an obligation to make good reparations for those who were removed from their homes and interned 50 years ago,” Matsui said. “This legislation will bring that obligation to its fruition.”

The new measure also authorizes payments to non-Japanese people who were interned along with spouses or other relatives during the war.

On Feb. 19, 1942, about two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order to round up people of Japanese descent. U.S. military officials theorized that Japanese-Americans could not be trusted if the West Coast were invaded by a Japanese army.