Editing War Relocation Authority (section)

==Resettlement program==
Concerned that Japanese Americans would become more dependent on the government the longer they remained in camp, Director Dillon Myer led the WRA in efforts to push inmates to leave camp and reintegrate into outside communities. Even before the establishment of the "relocation centers," agricultural laborers had been issued temporary work furloughs by the WCCA, and the [[Internment of Japanese Americans#Student leave to attend Eastern colleges|National Japanese American Student Relocation Council]] had been placing Nisei in outside colleges since the spring of 1942. The WRA had initiated its own "leave permit" system in July 1942, although few took the trouble to go through the bureaucratic and cumbersome application process until it was streamlined over the following months.<ref name=Robinson/> (By the end of 1942, only 884 had volunteered for resettlement.)<ref name=Asaka>{{cite web|last=Asaka |first=Megan |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Resettlement/ |title=Resettlement |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=November 13, 2014}}</ref>

The need for a more easily navigable system, in addition to external pressure from pro-incarceration politicians and the general public to restrict who could exit the camps, led to a revision of the application process in 1943. Initially, applicants were required to find an outside sponsor, provide proof of employment or school enrollment, and pass an FBI background check. In the new system, inmates had only complete a registration form and pass a streamlined FBI check. (The "loyalty questionnaire," as the form came to be known after it was made mandatory for all adults regardless of their eligibility for resettlement, would later spark protests across all ten camps.)<ref name=Asaka/>

At this point, the WRA began to shift its focus from managing the camps to overseeing resettlement. Field offices were established in Chicago, Salt Lake City and other hubs that had attracted Japanese American resettlers. Administrators worked with housing, employment and education sponsors in addition to social service agencies to provide assistance. Following Myer's directive to "assimilate" Japanese Americans into mainstream society, this network of WRA officials (and the propaganda they circulated in camp) steered resettlers toward cities that lacked large Japanese American populations and warned against sticking out by spending too much time among other Nikkei, speaking Japanese or otherwise clinging to cultural ties.<ref name=Robinson/> By the end of 1944, close to 35,000 had left camp, mostly Nisei.<ref name=Asaka/>