In August of 1927, six months after the official founding of the League Against Imperialism (LAI) in Brussels, an unprecedented situation confronted prominent League member Shapurji Saklatvala: the British passport office cancelled the endorsement of his passport for journeys to India, which meant that, despite being of Indian origin, he was no longer allowed to travel to his home country from Britain, where he then resided. This had serious implications for his political work, as it prevented him from going on propaganda and fact-finding missions to India. Moreover, the authorities’ decision also affected him deeply on a personal level; as his daughter remembered in her memoirs decades later, “it was, without doubt, the greatest hurt that was ever inflicted upon him.”

The LAI is widely seen as one of the most important organizations challenging imperial rule during the first half of the twentieth century. The League and its leaders played a crucial role in developing an inherently internationalist vision of anti-imperialism, which was aimed at ending colonial rule not just in one specific colony or empire, but across the globe. This strategy meant that international travel came to be a defining feature of the lives of most leading LAI members. Delegates from various countries came together at the League congresses in different European cities, which created contact zones that allowed them to forge connections across the world that they often retained until the period of decolonization after 1945. In addition, LAI members travelled from one European country to the next to coordinate the work of the various European LAI branches with the League's international headquarters, located in Berlin from the founding of the League in 1927 until the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, and then in Britain until the dissolution of the League in 1937. Finally, they tried to carry out the League's work beyond Europe's borders, travelling to colonized territories to give political speeches and create additional League branches within the colonies.

Faced with these movements of activists, the imperial governments of Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands used the existing passport system—which had been modified and expanded during the First World War—to control them through denying visas to those whom they wished to keep out of—or within—certain locations.