This paper argues that Ottoman Naturalization Law of 1869 did not intend to create a more inclusive imperial identity, but rather aimed to establish and maintain control of the state over the subject peoples i.e. by facilitating expatriation, displacement, naturalization and loss of citizenship, through the example of the Ottoman plans for the deportation of Greeks in 1869. In their attempt to modernize sociopolitical orders that had come to seem backward by mid-century, the Ottoman bureaucrats tried to adopt models regarded as successful in the West. To this end, they decoupled citizenship from older ascriptive categories—ethnic, social or confessional status—replacing them with more universal civic definitions. This reconceptualization of citizenship—and by extension the relationship between state and subject/citizen—emerged as a core issue of redefining statehood in most non-western states from China to Iran. Pulling together fragmented individual cases, as well as bureaucratic and diplomatic correspondence, this paper contextualizes the practical ramifications of the 1869 Ottoman Naturalization Law for the Greek population. This new law aimed to identify select ethno-religious communities deemed to be “undesirable” in order to expel them and targeted those born in the empire who obtained foreign passports to benefit from the legal exemptions extended to citizens of western powers. During the 1860s, the Ottoman state faced a constant threat of separatism among non-Muslim populations, and embarked on the task of creating an exclusivist imperial citizenship by denaturalizing those populations. Most importantly, this denaturalization process would entail the deportation (teb’id) of significant portions of the native Ottoman population, mostly Christians. By examining the ways in which the mass deportations of Greeks in the Empire reflected in policy the new approaches to imperial citizenship, this paper advances historical arguments related to studies of genocide in the Middle East, from the mid-nineteenth through early twentieth centuries. This paper rather suggests that ostensibly liberal/secular definitions of citizenship actually acted to marginalize people who under earlier legal regimes had enjoyed some kinds of protection, if not full rights of political participation. This shift in the definition of citizenship laid the conceptual foundations for subsequent genocidal policies against the marginalized populations.