Presidential Proclamation — Removal of Alien Enemies — No. 2685
April 10, 1946
A Proclamation
Whereas the Congress by joint resolutions approved by the President on December 8 and 11, 1941, and June 5, 1942, declared the existence of a state of war between the United States on the one hand and Japan, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania on the other hand; and
Whereas in accordance with Resolution XVII of the Conference of Foreign Ministers at Rio de Janeiro adopted on January 28, 1942, and subsequently by undertakings based upon Resolution XX of the Emergency Advisory Committee for Political Defense adopted at Montevideo on May 21, 1943, there has been assumed by the Government of the United States responsibility for the restraint and repatriation of certain dangerous alien enemies brought to the United States from other of the American republics in the interest of the security of the Western Hemisphere; and
Whereas by Resolution VII of the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace adopted at Mexico City on March 8, 1945, the American republics recommended the adoption of measures to prevent any person whose deportation should be deemed necessary for reasons of security of the continent from further residing in this hemisphere, if such residence would be prejudicial to the future security or welfare of the Americas; and
Whereas I find it necessary in the light of the commitments of the Government and in the interest of national defense and public safety to prescribe regulations additional and supplemental to all other regulations affecting the restraint and removal of alien enemies:
Now, Therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, acting under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution of the United States and the aforesaid sections of the Revised Statutes of the United States, do hereby prescribe and proclaim the following regulations, additional and supplemental to all other regulations affecting the restraint and removal of alien enemies:
1. All alien enemies within the continental limits of the United States brought here from other American republics after December 7, 1941, who are within the territory of the United States without admission under the immigration laws, shall, if their continued residence in the Western Hemisphere is deemed by the Secretary of State to be prejudicial to the future security or welfare of the Americas, be subject upon the order of the Secretary of State to removal from the United States and may be required to depart therefrom in accordance with such regulations as the Secretary of State may prescribe.
2. In all cases in which the Secretary of State shall have ordered the removal of an alien enemy under the authority of this proclamation or in which the Attorney General shall have ordered the removal of an alien enemy under the authority of Proclamation No. 2655 of July 14, 1945, thirty days shall be considered, and is hereby declared to be, a reasonable time for such alien enemy to effect the recovery, disposal, and removal of his goods and effects, and for his departure.
3. This proclamation supersedes Proclamation No. 2662 of September 8, 1945, entitled “Removal of Alien Enemies.”
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this 10th day of April in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventieth.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
By the President:
JAMES F. BYRNES,
Secretary of State.
John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http:/J/www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16068.