We formally define the gradual removal problem in wireless networks, where the smallest number of users should be removed due to infeasibility of the target-SIR requirements for all users, and present a distributed power-control algorithm with temporary removal and feasibility check (DFC) to address it. The basic idea is that any transmitting user whose required transmit power for reaching its target-SIR exceeds its maximum power is temporarily removed, but resumes its transmission if its required transmit power goes below a given threshold obtained in a distributed manner. This enables users to check the feasibility of system in a distributed manner. The existence of at least one fixed-point in DFC is guaranteed, and at each equilibrium, all transmitting users reach their target-SIRs consuming the minimum aggregate transmit power. Furthermore, in contrast to the existing algorithms, no user is unnecessarily removed by DFC, i.e., DFC is Pareto and energy-efficient. We also show that when target-SIRs are the same for all users, DFC minimizes the outage probability. Simulation results confirm our analytical developments and show that DFC significantly outperforms the existing schemes in addressing the gradual removal problem in terms of convergence, outage probability, and power consumption.