Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said that Indian citizens left off the list will have opportunities to prove their nationality, but that has not assuaged the fears of minorities, especially Muslims, who feel targeted by the policy.

It also means that Bangladesh — which is sheltering more than 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, on its southern border — could see a new influx of stateless migrants from the north.

Efforts to deport Bangladeshis have a decades-long history in Assam. In 1985, India’s government signed the Assam Accord, which made all undocumented migrants to the state after 1971 illegal. Over the years, Bengali speakers have faced repeated rounds of xenophobic violence.

“We cannot compromise our identity,” said Samujjal Bhattacharjya, chief adviser to the All Assam Students Union, which has been at the forefront of an anti-immigrant campaign in the state. “We cannot feel like second-class citizens here.”

The government asked for legacy documents that show land ownership, voting records, or residency in India since before 1971.

Those who were born in India after 1971 or who don’t have legacy documents were asked to show links to parents or relatives who passed the test for citizenship — and that’s where many people, especially women, stumble. Many who sought Hussein’s help had proof that their fathers had voted in an election in 1966 but no birth certificates to show that they were their father’s daughters. Women are especially vulnerable because land is usually passed down to male heirs and so they don’t appear on documents proving ownership or inheritance.

Assam has seen waves of migration from present-day Bangladesh for generations, before India or Bangladesh existed as independent nations. Many Muslim Assamese, whose Bengali language resembles Bangladesh’s, claim their ancestors migrated here during World War II under a campaign by British colonial rulers to increase production on farms.

Another wave of migrants was given refuge in India during Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971, in which the army’s brutal campaigns raised death tolls to more than 300,000, according to some estimates.

Prateek Hajela, the Supreme Court-mandated coordinator of the National Register of Citizens, said the list did not specifically target Muslims and that many Hindus were also among the unlisted.

“Whosoever has got left out has the opportunity to appeal,” he said, adding that the process was not flawed but instead “incomplete.”