[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 3 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Pages 147-149]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
 Proclamation 7395--Establishment of the Minidoka Internment National 
Monument

 January 17, 2001

 By the President of the United States

 of America

 A Proclamation

    The Minidoka Internment National Monument is a unique and 
irreplaceable historical resource which protects historic structures and 
objects that provide opportunities for public education and 
interpretation of an important chapter in American history--the 
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
    On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 
Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War and military 
commanders to designate military areas from which ``any or all persons 
may be excluded'' and to ``provide for residents of any such area who 
are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other 
accommodations as may be necessary.''
    Starting in early 1942, military authorities began designating 
military exclusion areas in the States of California, Washington, 
Oregon, and Arizona, and the territory of Alaska. Following the signing 
of Executive Order 9066, American citizens and resident aliens of 
Japanese ancestry living in the designated exclusion areas were ordered 
to evacuate their homes and businesses and report to temporary assembly 
centers located at fairgrounds, horse racetracks, and other make-shift 
facilities.
    To provide more permanent accommodations for the evacuees, President 
Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in March 1942. 
The WRA oversaw the construction of ten relocation centers on Federally 
owned lands in remote areas of six western States and Arkansas, 
including the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. Alaskan Native 
residents of the Aleutian and Pribiloff Islands and members of other 
ethnic and religious groups were also relocated or interned during the 
course of the war.
    Established in August 1942, the Minidoka Relocation Center, also 
known as the Hunt Site, was located on Federal lands in Jerome

[[Page 148]]

County, in south central Idaho. During its operation from August 1942 to 
October 1945, the population reached a peak of 9,397 Japanese Americans 
from Washington State, Oregon, and Alaska. The Center included over 
33,000 acres of land with administrative and residential facilities 
located on approximately 950 acres. The Center had more than 600 
buildings including administrative, religious, residential, educational, 
mess, medical, manufacturing, warehouse, security, and other structures.
    Living conditions at Minidoka and the other centers were harsh. 
Internees were housed in crude barracks and cramped quarters, and they 
shared communal facilities. Internees engaged in irrigated agriculture, 
livestock production, and light manufacturing to produce food and 
garments for the camp. Approximately 1,000 internees from Minidoka 
served in the U.S. military. Fifty-four Japanese American servicemen 
from Minidoka were killed in action.
    Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), 
authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public 
proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, 
and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated 
upon lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to 
be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of 
lands, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the 
smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the 
objects to be protected.
    Whereas it appears that it would be in the public interest to 
reserve such lands as a national monument to be known as the Minidoka 
Internment National Monument:
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Act 
of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are 
hereby set apart and reserved as the Minidoka Internment National 
Monument for the purpose of protecting the historic structures and 
objects of historic interest contained therein, all lands and interests 
in lands owned or controlled by the United States within the boundaries 
of the area described on the map entitled ``Minidoka Internment National 
Monument'' attached to and forming a part of this proclamation. The 
Federal lands and interests in land reserved consist of approximately 
72.75 acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care 
and management of the structures and objects to be protected.
    All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of 
this monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of 
entry, location, selection, sale, or leasing or other disposition under 
the public land or other Federal laws, including but not limited to 
withdrawal from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and 
from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal 
leasing.
    The Secretary of the Interior, pursuant to legal authorities, shall 
manage the monument and shall transfer administration of the monument to 
the National Park Service to implement the purposes of this 
proclamation.
    To carry out the purposes of this proclamation and to interpret the 
relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the 
Secretary of the Interior, through the National Park Service, shall 
prepare a management plan for the monument within 3 years of this date.
    This proclamation does not reserve water as a matter of Federal law 
nor relinquish any water rights held by the Federal Government existing 
on this date. The Secretary shall work with appropriate State 
authorities to ensure that any water resources needed for monument 
purposes are available.
    The establishment of this monument is subject to valid existing 
rights, provided that nothing in this proclamation shall interfere with 
the operation and maintenance of the Northside Canal to the extent that 
any such activities, that are not valid existing rights, are consistent 
with the purposes of the proclamation.
    Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish 
the rights of any Indian tribe.
    Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing 
withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however the national monument 
shall be the dominant reservation.

[[Page 149]]

    Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to 
appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and 
not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day 
of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the 
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
fifth.
                                            William J. Clinton

 [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., January 19, 
2001]

  Note:  This proclamation was published in the  Federal Register  on 
January 22.