Critics characterize the law as an attempt to encourage Native Americans to leave Indian reservations and their traditional lands, to assimilate into the general population in urban areas, and to weaken community and tribal ties.

[6] However, not all who accepted these offers actually received these benefits once they arrived in the cities, leading to some cases of poverty, culture shock, joblessness and homelessness among this population in the new, urban environment.

[9] In 1947, Secretary of the Interior, Julius Krug, at the request of President Truman, proposed a ten-year program to provide the Hopi and Navajo tribes with vocational training.

In 1950, the Navajo-Hopi Law was passed which funded a program to help relocate tribe members to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Denver and help them find jobs.

Relocation to cities, where more jobs were available, was expected to reduce poverty among Native Americans, who tended to live on isolated, rural reservations.

[citation needed] Through the first half of the 20th century, the majority of the American population had become increasingly urbanized, as cities were the places with jobs and related amenities.

[10] While the beginning of US settler colonialism witnessed physical violence against Native Americans, it is proposed later efforts to steal land were based on legislation.

[1] Related to the Indian Relocation Act, those who moved to cities forfeited their designated allotment, lessening the amount of land for reservations and making it further vulnerable to encroaching settler colonialism.

This theft of land from the Dawes Act, the termination policy, and the subsequent relocation program allowed for more encroaching settler colonialism and opened more opportunities for development and resource extraction.

For the Monominees tribes, for example, it is argued this caused a rapidly sinking economy, health and education issues, and skyrocketing tuberculosis rate.

[11] Superficially marketed as a job opportunities program, the relocation act was enticing for many Native American people suffering the consequences of the termination policy.

For the purposes of this program the Secretary is authorized to enter into contracts or agreements with any Federal, State, or local governmental agency, or with any private school which has a recognized reputation in the field of vocational education and has successfully found employment for its graduates in their respective fields of training, or with any corporation or association which has an existing apprenticeship or on-the-job training program which is recognized by industry and labor as leading to skilled employment.

Students were provided two years of education, along with transportation, room, board, funds for books and tools, and a living allowance.

Scholar Evelyn Nakano Glenn writes that "Native American men were often tracked into low-level, dead-end jobs, and women were directed to domestic service in white households".

Children of relocated workers had difficulty enrolling in segregated public schools and faced the same social discrimination as their parents.

[22] Despite the overly positive declarations made by its supporters, in reality, termination and relocation policy wrought social havoc for Indians generally.

The groups would often end up living hotels for long stretches of time upon moving to cities and having no money to afford much else than a room.

[11] In addition, more politically motivated cross cultural groups began to form with proximity in cities and a pan-Indian consciousness developed.