[1] The case arose out of the implementation of Executive Order 9066 by the U.S. military to create zones of exclusion along the West Coast of the United States, where Japanese Americans were subjected to curfews and eventual removal to relocation centers.

This Presidential order followed the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II and inflamed the existing anti-Japanese sentiment in the country.

After two years of combat neutrality, the United States was drawn into the war as an active participant after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

[2] This executive order authorized the military to create zones of exclusion, which were then used to relocate predominantly those of Japanese heritage from the West Coast to internment camps inland.

[5] Yasui, U.S. Army reservist,[6] then began working at the Japanese Consulate in Chicago, Illinois, in 1940, remaining there until December 8, 1941, when he then resigned and returned to Hood River.

[1] Citing Hirabayashi, Chief Justice Stone wrote the opinion of the court, and determined that the curfew and exclusion orders were valid, even as applied to citizens of the United States.

[1][7][12] Once the case returned to Judge Fee, he revised his earlier opinion to strike out the ruling that Yasui was no longer a United States citizen.

[15] Criticism has included the racist aspects of the cases and the later discovery that officials in the United States Department of Justice lied to the court at the time of the trial.

[16] On February 1, 1983, Yasui petitioned the Oregon federal district court for a writ of error coram nobis due to the discovery of the falsehoods promulgated by the Department of Justice.

[5] Lawyers who represented Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Minoru Yasui in successful efforts in lower federal courts to nullify their convictions for violating military curfew and exclusion orders sent a letter dated January 13, 2014 to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr.[19] In light of the appeal proceedings before the U.S. Supreme in Hedges v. Obama, the lawyers asked Verrili to request the Supreme Court overrule its decisions in Korematsu (1943), Hirabayashi (1943) and Yasui (1943).