During World War II, almost 130,000 U.S. residents of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated from their homes by agencies of the federal government and interned in government-run facilities around the country. In addition to the Japanese affected by these "restrictive governmental actions," more than 14,000 persons of either German or Italian ancestry were also interned, and many thousands of U.S. residents from all three groups were subjected to various restrictions on their movements, and loss of other civil liberties. ⁽¹⁾

Most of this history is well-known. What has been almost entirely overlooked in prior scholarship is that in the midst of this highly repressive governmental action, other agencies of the federal government were engaged in what can only be described as humanitarian efforts to lessen some of the practical burdens of the internments. In particular, the U.S. Social Security Board ⁽²⁾ played a largely unseen role in providing both cash and in-kind assistance and other services to internees under a program known as Assistance and Services to Enemy Aliens and Others (ASEAO). ⁽³⁾ Moreover, as will emerge from a review of the documentary record, in several policy areas, the Social Security Board implemented remarkably generous policies (given the context in which the ASEAO program arose) based on the premise that the internees were to be accorded, as far as possible, the same rights as any other beneficiary of 1940s-era social welfare programs.

The ASEAO program, authorized in a broad way by President Roosevelt via executive fiat, was thus an unusual example of a compensatory social welfare program in the context of the decidedly repressive activities of the wartime internments. We might even say of it, that the ASEAO program was an island of compassionate government policy within the larger sea of repression and loss of civil liberties of the wartime internments.

The object of the present work is to restore our awareness of this internment-related program; to explain its principles and operations; and to analyze it in some depth as an example of federal social welfare policymaking in this highly unusual context during this remarkable episode in America's history.

1. The internments discussed in this thesis involved persons of Japanese, German and Italian descent. Some of these persons were naturalized American citizens, some were native-born American citizens, others were resident aliens lawfully admitted to the U.S. for permanent residence who were still citizens of their countries of origin. All were united only in the fact that their ancestries lay in the three nations of the Axis powers. For purposes of this study, these distinctions in residency status will not generally be pertinent. Thus, for convenience sake, I will tend to lump together these various categories in generic labels, unless I have a specific point to make that necessitates a finer distinction.

2. The U.S. Social Security Board was part of the sub-cabinet Federal Security Agency (FSA). In addition to Social Security, FSA had responsibility for the Public Health Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of Education, and a handful of other miscellaneous functions of the federal government.

3. There were several shifts in nomenclature in this program during the course of the war. "Assistance and Services to Enemy Aliens" is how the program was initially known, but when citizens became eligible for coverage "Others" was added and the acronym juggled to become ASEAO. Sometimes the ASEAO program is referred to as "Services and Assistance to Enemy Aliens and Others Affected by Restrictive Governmental Action"; sometimes only by the short-hand of EA, for Enemy Aliens. I will use ASEAO throughout for convenience.