60 N. KAPOOR AND K. NARKOWICZ remains permanently precarious for those whose legitimacy is a perpetual question even after official legal rights have been gained. Passport removals offer a way to implement denationalization by proxy, for subjects who are British born without alternative nationality and so for whom official deprivation is not sanctionable. If in legal terms to deprive someone of their citizenship remains quite distinct from the act of removing their passport, symbolically and materially the process of enforcing passport removal is to effectively undocument a subject, to make them “sans papier” (Chamayou 2014), to remove them of a number of automatic rights that come with formal recognition of citizenship which go beyond the imperative right to freedom of movement. The ability to suspend citizenship through the cancellation of one’s passport is not a practice that is widespread; it has thus far impacted only a small number of individuals. However, lawyers we spoke to did indicate its growing use in other circumstances too, that were not terrorism-related. This “deprivation by the back door”, our interviewee explained happens when applications are made for passport renewal but applicants do not receive a reply. A lengthy bureaucratic process ensues to ascertain why. You go for an interview and maybe you get accused of being an immigration offender … and they say, “We’ll be in touch”, and you don’t hear anything. You keep writing … two years, three years go by, you don’t hear … If you get your MP to write … then they say, “An issue has arisen”, they won’t tell you what it is, [just] “we’re not satisfied that you’re entitled to a new passport”. Beyond these select cases, the significance of removing and cancelling passport lie in the symbolic nature of what the process represents and its elucidation on the nature of expanding state power. In this regard it represents much more than a restriction on one’s freedom of movement, an established right (Macklin 2014). It forms a way of restricting social, cultural, political and legal claims in a more permanent fashion. It represents a possibility for unmaking citizens. Notes 1. The current government promised to repeal sections of this legislation. 2. At the time of writing the authors are aware that a Temporary Exclusion Order has been used once, but there is legal confusion over what this means in practice since the person was allowed to return to Britain and then served the order. 3. Four British citizens returning from Guantanamo Bay were removed of their passports in 2005. Prior to that between, 1947 and 1976, passport removal on public interest grounds had occurred only sixteen times. 4. This procedure is used routinely in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a controversial court set up initially for dealing with immigration cases where national security concerns were raised since it allows for some of the evidence to be heard in secret.