There were several, but they were isolated, not part of an organized movement against Executive Order 9066, and are relevant only in hindsight to demonstrate that support for Roosevelt's decision was not universal. In reality, the order was supported by all branches of the U.S. military (which established no-go zones for resident aliens), the FBI, state governors and other federal officials. There were plenty of people who, although they went along with AO9066, were of two minds about doing so.

Attorney General Francis Biddle, for example, attempted to slow the process. In a memo to the president, dated Feb. 17, 1942, he cautioned the president that the FBI and War Department had no concrete information about sabotage or attack. "Their hurried evacuation would require thousands of troops, tie up transportation and raise very difficult questions of resettlement. Under the Constitution, 60,000 of these Japanese are American citizens. If complete confusion and lowering of morale is to be avoided, so large a job must be done after careful planning."

James Rowe Jr., an assistant to Biddle, was one of the biggest critics within the administration of its removal policy. On Feb. 2, 1942, he wrote:

"There is tremendous public pressure to move all of them out of California ─ citizens and aliens ─ and no one seems to worry about how or to where. There are about 125,000 of them, and if it happens, it will be one of the great mass exoduses of history. It would probably require suspension of the writ of habeas corpus ─ and my estimate of the country's present feeling is that we would have another Supreme Court fight on our hands."

Thanks to Rowe and Biddle's reluctance, the Justice Department would take no part in the removals. It was an inconsequential victory, however, as public opinion was firmly in favor, as was political opinion.

One of the more interesting objections was that raised by Colorado governor Ralph Carr, in office from 1939 to 1943. Carr, who was overwhelmingly defeated in a 1942 run for the U.S. Senate, wrote in a newspaper letter early that year:

"To the American-born citizen of Japanese parentage we look for example of guidance. To those who have not been so fortunate as to have been born in this country, we offer the hand of friendship, secure in the knowledge that they will be as truly American as the rest of us. This is a difficult time for all Japanese-speaking people. We must work together for the preservation of our American system, for the continuation of our theory of universal brotherhood.

It's important to note that before AO9066 was issued, official opinion was much more divided. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, for example, coordinated the arrest of almost 1,300 Japanese, 850 Germans and 150 Italians by Dec. 10, 1941. He subsequently favored a monitoring policy with respect to Japanese-Americans. Rather than evacuation, he felt it would be best for the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and allow the FBI to simply arrest any offending Japanese-Americans when and if the FBI's monitoring programs found a problem.