M. Mohsin Alam Bhat & Aashish Yadav exception in the citizenship denial regime.34 As soon as the BJP came back to power in 2014, it concretised these exceptions for non-Muslim migrants in several steps. It amended the immigration rules in 2015 and 2016 to exempt undocumented non-Muslim migrants from India’s neighbouring countries who had faced religious persecution. Consequently, anyone from these communities entering India without valid documents did not face any penal consequences.35 In 2018, the government regularised the entry and stay of persons belonging to these communities by granting them long term visas on the ground that they seek to permanently settle in India.36 Muslim undocumented immigrants remained excluded from this regime. The CAA 2019 incorporates these changes into the country’s citizenship law, formalising citizenship denial only for Muslim undocumented immigrants and their children. Implications of the CAA The Indian government has argued that the CAA will not lead to citizenship revocation. This overlooks the fact that the parallel processes of the NRIC and the National Population Register (‘the NPR’), along with the CAA threaten citizenship revocation that makes Muslims disproportionately vulnerable. The 2003 amendment to the Citizenship Act empowered the government to create the NRIC as an enumeration of all the citizens in the country.37 Under the rules,38 the government is first meant to create the NPR to record all the residents in the country. It is subsequently meant to enumerate them as citizens or otherwise based on the documentary evidence they provide. The NRIC thus is an Assam-NRC extended to the national level. The government has framed the NRIC as a citizenship determination exercise that will filter out foreigners. But the lack of access to government documents heightens the vulnerability of the socially disadvantaged communities as seen in Assam. The mechanics of the NRIC raise concerns that the local government officers tasked with implementing it may perceive Muslims as foreigners and subject their documentary evidence to wider scrutiny. Consequently, some commentators have argued that the NRIC might have even graver consequences than Assam’s NRC since the determination of citizenship is left to the unguided discretion of local executive authorities.39 This problem is further heightened by the fact that prominent state officials have publicly associated the NRIC and the CAA. In fact, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has consistently linked the two in his political speeches.40 He was reported to have said that these policies will be implemented to identify and 34 The Gazette of India (28 February 2004), Notification. http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2004/E_110_2011_028.pdf. (consulted 12 July 2020) 35 The Gazette of India (7 September 2015), Notification. http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2015/165755.pdf. (consulted 26 June 2020); The Gazette of India (18 July 2016), Notification. http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2016/170822.pdf. (consulted 26 June 2020) 36 This mechanism allowed these communities among other things residency permits, access to education, employment entitlements and limited free movement. See, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India (2018), Long Term Visas. https://www.mha.gov.in/PDF_Other/AnnexVI_01022018.pdf. (consulted 22 June 2020) 37 The Citizenship Act 1955, section 14A (2). 38 Ministry of Home Affairs (10 December 2003), Notification. Act&Rules/notifications/citizenship_rules2003.pdf. (consulted 21 June 2020) 39 Mander, H. & M.A. Bhat (31 January 2020), This land is mine. https://in.boell.org/en/2020/01/31/land-mine. (consulted 26 June 2020) 40 Twitter (1 May 2019), Amit Shah. https://twitter.com/amitshah/status/1123581776415399937. (consulted 21 June 2020). See also, Scroll (20 December 2019), Who is linking Citizenship Act to NRC? Here are five times Amit Shah did so. https://scroll.in/article/947436/who-is-linking-citizenship-act-to-nrc-here-are-five-times-amit-shah-did-so. (consulted 21 June 2020) 32 https://censusindia.gov.in/2011- Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Working Papers