On December 17, 1944, the Public Proclamation Number 21 finally ended the imprisonment of the Japanese. The Supreme Court ruled in the Ex Parte case which said that the military could not justify holding American citizens against their will the next day. This ruling then ended the Relocation Program. When the Japanese were let out of the internment camps in 1945, each received 25 dollars as payment to transportation and tickets. Many soon realized that they could not retrieve their homes and businesses. Many Japanese Americans returned to the west coast where some were welcomed home and others found their homes vandalized.
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Other Japanese Americans returned to Japan. In 1948, Congress agreed to pay the Japanese for some of their lost property although; each Japanese American was paid less than 10 cents for each dollar they had lost.
Japanese Americans remained determined and fought for their rights from 1948 during the Claims Act to 1983 in Hohri vs. United States where Japanese Americans asked for 2.5 billion dollars for the damages caused during and after WWII. In October 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act bill into a law. in which each living internee was paid 20,000 dollars for reperations. The Civil Liberties Act stated that "The Congress recognizes that, as described in the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II. As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. The excluded individuals of Japanese ancestry suffered enormous damages, both material and intangible, and there were incalculable losses in education and job training, all of which resulted in significant human suffering for which appropriate compensation has not been made. For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation."
Japanese Americans remained determined and fought for their rights from 1948 during the Claims Act to 1983 in Hohri vs. United States where Japanese Americans asked for 2.5 billion dollars for the damages caused during and after WWII. In October 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act bill into a law. in which each living internee was paid 20,000 dollars for reperations. The Civil Liberties Act stated that "The Congress recognizes that, as described in the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II. As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. The excluded individuals of Japanese ancestry suffered enormous damages, both material and intangible, and there were incalculable losses in education and job training, all of which resulted in significant human suffering for which appropriate compensation has not been made. For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation."