<P> During 1945 after the war's end, the other nine WRA camps were closed as Japanese Americans gradually returned to their home towns or settled elsewhere . Tule Lake was operated to hold those who had renounced their citizenship and Issei who had requested repatriation to Japan . Most no longer wished to leave the United States (and many had never truly wanted to leave in the first place). Civil rights attorney Wayne M. Collins became interested in the issues of the internment of the Japanese Americans and learned about the loyalty questionnaires and other issues . Collins helped shut down the Tule Lake stockades, and he helped 3,000 of the 4,327 Japanese Americans originally slated for deportation remain in the United States as their choice . </P> <P> Those who wanted to stay in the United States and regain their citizenship (if they had it), were confined in Tule Lake until hearings at which their cases would be heard and fates determined . After the last cases were decided, the camp closed in March 1946 . Although these Japanese Americans were released from camp and allowed to stay in the U.S., Nisei and Kibei who had renounced their citizenship were not able to have it restored . Collins filed a class action suit on their behalf and the presiding judge voided the renunciations, finding they had been given under duress, but the ruling was overturned by the Department of Justice . </P> <P> After a 20 - year legal battle, Collins finally succeeded in gaining restoration in the 1960s of the citizenship of those covered by the class action suit . </P> <P> Some of the Japanese - American draft resisters wanted to use their cases to challenge their incarceration and loss of rights as US citizens . United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara, was the only World War II - era Japanese - American draft resistance case to be dismissed out of court based on a due process violation of the U.S. Constitution . It was a forerunner of the Korematsu and Endo cases argued before the US Supreme Court, later in December 1944 . </P>

Tule lake unit wwii valor in the pacific national monument