Why did FDR create internment camps for Japanese-Americans?

There was not very much spying going on. The irony is that a major spy for the Japanese was a Brit in Hollywood! There were a few Japanese-Americans who were tangentially attached to spying. (Currently reading a book about him.)

There are several good books that I have just finished that all detail that the threat was very overblown and comes down to racism and fear. The sneak attack had a lot to do with it as well.

Bridge to the Sun Bruce Henderson

Ghosts of Honolulu Mark Harmon (yes THAT Mark Harmon)

Facing the Mountain Daniel James Brown

I don't know why my post of a 1942 cartoon was removed. Some mod with an itchy finger probably thought it was intended to be racist. Nope, it was an answer to the question. Hollywood put on a massive propaganda campaign to demonize the Japanese. The entire industry was mobilized for the war effort.

Anyway, for those who are educationally minded, search for "You're a sap, Mr. Jap."

After the US Civil War concluded, the US invaded Asia and began raping Asians and looting raw materials. The Roosevelt family made $Millions poisoning Chinese with Opium.

The Pope claimed Asia as his and commissioned Portugal/Spain to murder and rape Taiwan around 1600. That went on until 1975 when Vietnam terribly routed and defeated the United States Army on the battlefield in man to man mortal hand to hand combat. The US Army ran away and left 25,000 US combat soldiers stranded alone. Later imprisoned, mutilated, cannibalized, enslaved, sexually assaulted, and dead. Decades later when the US signed a peace treaty with Vietnam both nations agreed to return souvenir penises, vaginas, breasts, scalps, anuses, fingers, ears, etc. in formaldehyde bottles. The exchange of souvenirs was a gory scene, a nightmare that would never go away for the United States Army.

You don't know history. This is laughable. Read a book.

He got away with it because he's a Democrat. It's (D)ifferent.

1. In Cali, many Japanese had valuable land which wealthy hucksters were able to steal and never give back after the war ended.

2. Some German and Italian Americans were also rounded up but nowhere in the %s the Japanese Americans were. American racism was used to allow this.

3. Japanese Americans were let out of the camps if they agreed to go kill and die for the American Empire

The Americans of Japanese descent who were rounded up were by and large here legally. The “illegal Mexicans” of which you speak are not here legally, hence the need to round them up as you put it. There’s a difference.

In the 1800s, US Manifest Destiny was the Zionism, National Socialism of its time. The US exterminated millions of native Americans, Asians, Mexicans, Blacks in a reign of terror which still goes on today in the Middle East.

After the Gentlemans Agreement women came into the US through Mexico into San Pedro, San Diego, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Seattle, Portland, etc. via boats owned by Japanese-American fisherman. Millions of Europeans, Mexicans, etc. also flowed in without any issues.

Um, FDR died before about four months before the war in the Pacific ended. Are you going to impeach a corpse?

He’s a Democrat, it’s what they do and getting away with it is common practice

The parallel isn't even "legal Mexican" but a Mexican American. A US citizen. There are many generations of Mexican Americans at no risk from la migra. "plane" would be surprised to hear many of their opinions about undocumented Mexican citizens. To assume Hispanics agree with them is classic lib racism.

If citizens of Japan living undocumented the US during WW2 had been interned, nobody would have cried about it, then, now or ever. The problem is that US citizens were interned.

Looks like the Russian Trolls and their false narratives are back.

My Grandma told me, "Never trust a Jap" (probably around 1980).

She had a good excuse for her animosity. She and my infant father had to be evacuated from the Philippines ahead of the Japanese invasion, while my Grandfather, a newly minted ensign in the US Navy put to sea in a P.O.S. submarine that shouldn't have even been in commission. The story is told in the book, "Pigboat 39".

I'm surprised the OP even asked this question. WWII was so full of atrocities committed by all sides that Japanese internment barely registered in people's psyches back then. OP mentions "war crimes", but most of that stuff was simply called "war" back then. These days, we like to try and look at war like it should be some sanitary thing where armies square off on a battlefield and leave civilians out of it. That time, if it ever existed, went the way of the dodo centuries ago. Russia's attacks on children's cancer hospitals and Israel's attacks all over Gaza are not the barbaric exception to the rule of war. They are par for the course.

Was the internment wrong? Of course it was. The U.S. Government recognized that fact long ago. Time provides a long lens through which we can view our mistakes and beg for atonement, but in the moment, when the world is trying to tear itself apart, locking some people up in Manzanar probably didn't seem that bad.

Coincidentally, my Grandmother and Grandfather, who drove nothing but big American steel for the first 13 years of my life, bought their first Honda in 1984 and never owned a different make of car for the rest of their lives.

As the previous poster stated, the loyalty of the Japanese citizens was suspect and we were in a battle for our existance, the internment was entirely appropriate and justified during those times. Wartime conditions demand extreme measures sometimes. Today's wussy wokes have no comprehension of the tough times of yesteryears.