One of only three Japanese-Americans who refused to comply with Executive Order 9066, signed by
Franklin D. Roosevelt, which gave the military the power to restrict the movements of people of Japanese ancestry in the wake of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Hirabayashi's 1942 conviction for violating a curfew and refusing to enter a relocation camp was invalidated in 1986 by the U.S. District Court in Seattle, which ruled that the government withheld from the U.S. Supreme Court a report stating that race made it impossible to determine those of Japanese ancestry who were loyal to the U.S. Congress later approved $1.2 billion in reparations to the internees.
