Civil Liberties Act of 1988

United States, August 10, 1988: President Reagan signs the apology to Japanese Americans into law The benchmark for an apology with money attached. Roughly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry had been held without trial during World War II, and the Civil Liberties Act gave a formal apology and $20,000 to each surviving internee. Between 1990 and 1993 the checks went out with letters of apology, and 82,219 people received redress. Because only survivors qualified, people who had died in the four decades since the camps received nothing, which is the strongest argument that it came too late.