Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Site, WWII

Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station, World War II Shocked by the December 7, 1941, Empire of Japan attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that propelled the U.S. into World War II, one U.S. Government response was the incarceration of more than 120,000 Issei (first generation, Japanese immigrants) and Nisei (second generation, U.S. citizens) in War Relocation Authority camps across the country. Through separate confinement programs, thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian citizens in the U.S. (and in many cases, their U.S. citizen relatives), classified as Enemy Aliens, were detained by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through its enemy alien control unit, and, in Latin America, by the Department of State’s Special War Problems Division. Enemy aliens were held until paroled or exchanged for U.S. and Allied citizens seized overseas by Axis nations.

Texas hosted three DOJ confinement sites, administered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Crystal City, Kenedy, and here, as well as two U.S. Army Temporary Detention Stations at Fort Sam Houston and Fort Bliss. Next to historic Ellis Island (New York), the most aesthetically attractive INS confinement site was arguably at Seagoville. Originally built in 1941, as a women’s reformatory, Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station was transferred from the DOJ’s Bureau Of Prisons (BOP) to the INS on April 1, 1942.

The internment camp held German and Italian childless couples and single women detained in the U.S. or Latin America. The site included a hospital, auditorium-school, industry and service buildings, and 352 dorm-esque living quarters. Japanese Latin Americans were held in a “colony” of 50 Victory Huts. In 1943, the population peaked at 650 internees and 120 staff. The detention station closed in May 1945, returning to the BOP which has administered the site as a prison since the end of the war.

Texas in World War II -- 2013.