 Over 600 Hawaiian residents, many of them U.S. citizens would pass through Sand Island before it was closed in March 1943.Most of the internees had been transferred to Army and Department of Justice internment camps on the mainland beginning in February 1942; the remaining 149 were moved to the newly constructed Honouliuli Internment Camp.During the 1970s, over 100 homeless native Hawaiians cleaned up the garbage that filled the island, built homes and took up residence.