During World War II, approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry were interned, relocated or evacuated from their homes in the United States because of their race. Nearly fifty years later the country apologized for this grave injustice, and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed into law, authorizing payments of $20,000 to each such person who suffered as a result. The Office of Redress Administration (ORA) was established to identify, locate and pay these individuals. ORA officially closed on February 5, 1999. This serves as an informational site regarding the final statistics of ORA and the settlement of the Japanese Latin American lawsuit, Mochizuki v. United States.

Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (the Act), the statutory sunset date for the redress program was August 10, 1998. By operation of law, ORA closed on February 5, 1999. Seventy-nine claimants under the Act and 133 claimants under the Mochizuki settlement failed to submit all of their necessary documentation by ORA's closing date. Since ORA was unable to make a determination of eligibility or ineligibility for their claims, these cases were filed as pending for the possibility of future processing in the event additional funding was obtained through legislation.

On May 21, 1999, Congress passed new legislation that made additional funding available to pay remaining eligible claimants who had filed timely claims under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and the Mochizuki settlement agreement. Although we do not know when the money will be available to disperse, it may be several months or more, the Civil Rights Division began processing these pending claims. The additional funding was provided by Congress in Section 3021 of the FY 1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L. 106-31). To date, the Civil Rights Division has found several claimants, whose cases were pending at the end of the program due to incomplete documentation, to be eligible under the Act.

The Court of Federal Claims granted final approval to the settlement in Mochizuki v. United States, No. 97-294C, on January 25, 1999. At ORA's closing, 145 claimants under the settlement were paid and forwarded apology letters. Apology letters were also forwarded to another 396 Japanese Latin Americans determined to be eligible for $5,000 under the Mochizuki settlement, but who had not been paid because the Fund's monies had been expended. Of the 133 Japanese Latin Americans whose eligibility for $5,000 each under the settlement was pending at the end of the program due to incomplete documentation, over half have since been determined eligible. Further, almost 200 Japanese Latin Americans, who had permanent residency status during the war, received the full $20,000 compensation under the Act.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ora/main.html