On February 19, 1942, in the absence of charges or due process of law, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, setting into motion the forced evacuation of 7800 San Francisco Bay Area Japanese Americans. At this site, then the Tanforan Park Racetrack, they lived under armed guard for eight months in horse stalls and makeshift housing at the Tanforan Assembly Center. They, along with 120,000 Japanese Americans residing in the western states, were later forcibly removed to and confined in government detention camps in the nation's interior.