In one of his first actions as WRA Director, Myer established a formal leave program to allow citizen Nisei (second generation ethnic Japanese Americans) to exit camps for work outside the exclusion zone.

(Kibei, United States citizens who had spent considerable time in Japan and were viewed by the WRA with suspicion, and non-citizen Issei were prohibited from leaving the camps.

)[3] The leave clearance program helped alleviate overcrowding in some of the camps and, especially important for Myer, began the process of resettling an inmate population that would have to be released at the end of the war.

[5] Myer himself told an ACLU conference in 1944 that "super-patriotic organizations and individuals" and Hearst newspapers on the West Coast were hindering the resettlement of tens of thousands of "harmless" detainees who were eligible to leave the camps.

[3] Triggered in large part by news of the resettlement program, and fed by ongoing rumors that the WRA was "coddling" inmates while the larger public suffered from wartime shortages, the Dies Committee was charged with investigating potential fifth column activity in the camps.

Myer continued to work with an advisory council established by his predecessor and headed by Japanese American Citizens League leader Mike Masaoka (also a controversial figure).

[3][8] Additionally, while Myer was supportive of the "good" Nisei who were eligible for leave clearance, those who were seen as "troublemakers" – mostly protestors and those who failed the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" – were removed from the general population and sent to segregated maximum security camps.

[9] Myer led the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of Interior from May 1950 until President Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted his resignation in March 1953, as part of the change in administration following his election.

"[13]: 1030 Ultimately, Myer faced "vigorous" criticism from the AAIA,[10] for example in its opposition to his effort to broaden the powers of Bureau law-enforcement officers, who had jurisdiction on reservations of federally recognized tribes.

"[16]: 283 As early as 1950, reformer John Collier (who led BIA for 12 years under President Roosevelt) accused Myer of taking a stance of "personal patronage" toward tribes through his control over Indian legal affairs.