The State Department’s documentation powers overseas. As is the case inside U.S. borders, the State Department is solely responsible for adjudicating passport applications when citizens apply from or are located outside the United States.539 The State Department is also empowered to retain, revoke, and confiscate passports (see text boxes on previous page).540 In the case of revocation, the department is empowered to issue a one-way travel document facilitating return to the United States in certain limited circumstances.541 But such documents, if issued,542 may be confiscated by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol upon arrival, potentially leaving the holder without proof of identity.543 The Department of State is also responsible for registering births to U.S. citizens that take place abroad, issuing what is known as a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA).544 The department issues a CBRA “Upon application and the submission of satisfactory proof of birth, identity and nationality.”545 Under U.S. law, “the Secretary is also authorized to cancel a CRBA that was illegally, fraudulently, or erroneously obtained.”546 Many of the families affected by the State Department’s practices in Yemen, including Mansour’s, sought CRBAs on behalf of their children.547 Department officials in the Yemen cases regularly asserted the power to revoke a passport upon suspicion that the underlying certificate of naturalization was obtained fraudulently. Crucially, even the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) provides conflicting guidance as to whether officials in fact have this power at all.548 According to the DOS-OIG report, department staff also seized certificates of naturalization and identity documents issued by Yemen, apparently without seeking guidance on the legality of these seizures.549 The situation in Yemen may have involved a small number of Americans and their families, but the degree of power that the Department of State staff claimed to possess over the lives and freedom of citizens abroad is a legal distortion that potentially affects all Americans.550 The DOS-OIG’s report and the need for institutional reform. The DOS-OIG investigated the 2016 complaint and issued its report in October 2018. It found that between December 2012 and January 2013—the only period for which reliable information about these activities was retained by the State Department—there were 31 cases of passport confiscation. The DOS-OIG acknowledged, “this number likely understates the number of relevant cases.”551 A major finding of the report was that the State Department lacks “a central system to track passport confiscations or retentions.”552 According to the State Department, it revokes approximately 1,500 passports annually.553 Targeted anti-fraud activity at the Sana’a embassy stems in part from a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between two arms of the State Department designed to strengthen security in “posts with high levels of fraud that require investigations.”554 The MOU created a new Assistant Regional Security Officer position to work with embassy Fraud Prevention Units. The DOS-OIG found a number of worrying legal infirmities and procedural irregularities in the processing of passport retention and revocation during the implementation of this scheme in Sana’a, including: 122 UNMAKING AMERICANS