Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to amend the Law with regard to Aliens. |
---|---|
Citation | 5 Edw. 7. c. 13 |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 11 August 1905 |
Other legislation | |
Repeals/revokes | Registration of Aliens Act 1836 |
Repealed by | Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The Aliens Act 1905 (5 Edw. 7. c. 13) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. [2] The act introduced immigration controls and registration for the first time, and gave the Home Secretary overall responsibility for matters concerning immigration and nationality. [2] Those who "appeared unable to support themselves" or "likely to become a charge upon the rates" were declared "undesirable". The act also allowed to turn away potential immigrants on medical grounds. Asylum-seekers fleeing from religious or political persecution were supposedly exempted from the act but, nevertheless, their claims were often ignored. [3]
While the act was ostensibly designed to prevent paupers or criminals from entering the country and set up a mechanism to deport those who slipped through, one of its main objectives was to control Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. [4] Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe significantly increased after 1880 [5] which served as some basis for the creation of the Aliens Act 1905. Although it remained in force, the 1905 act was effectively subsumed by the Aliens Restriction Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. 5. c. 12), which introduced far more restrictive provisions. It was eventually repealed by the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 (9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 92).
Some of the border control mechanisms established with the Aliens Act 1905 remained throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. [6]
In the 19th century, the Russian Empire was home to about five million Jews, at the time, the "largest Jewish community in the world". [4] Subjected to religious persecution, they were obliged to live in the Pale of Settlement, on the Polish-Russian borders, in conditions of great poverty. [4] About half left, mostly for the United States, but many – about 150,000 – arrived in the United Kingdom, mostly in England. [4] This reached its peak in the late 1890s, with "tens of thousands of Jews ... mostly poor, semi-skilled and unskilled" settling in the East End of London. [4]
By the turn of the century, a media and public backlash had begun. [4] The British Brothers' League was formed, with the support of prominent politicians such as William Evans-Gordon, MP for Stepney, organising marches and petitions. [4] At rallies, its speakers said that Britain should not become "the dumping ground for the scum of Europe". [4] In 1905, an editorial in the Manchester Evening Chronicle [4] wrote "that the dirty, destitute, diseased, verminous and criminal foreigner who dumps himself on our soil and rates simultaneously, shall be forbidden to land". Antisemitism broke out into violence in South Wales in 1902 and 1903 where Jews were assaulted. [7]
Aside from antisemitic sentiments, the act was also driven by the economic and social unrest in the East End of London where most immigrants settled. Work was difficult to come by and families required all members to contribute. [8]
Future Prime Minister Winston Churchill opposed the bill. He stated that the bill would "appeal to insular prejudice against foreigners, to racial prejudice against Jews, and to labour prejudice against competition" and expressed himself in favour of "the old tolerant and generous practice of free entry and asylum to which this country has so long adhered and from which it has so greatly gained". [9] On 31 May 1904, he crossed the floor, defecting from the Conservatives to sit as a member of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. [10]
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. Forced displacement or forced migration of an individual or a group may be caused by deportation, for example ethnic cleansing, and other reasons. A person who has been deported or is under sentence of deportation is called a deportee.
Temporary regulations regarding the Jews were proposed by the minister of internal affairs Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev and enacted on 15 May, 1882, by Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Originally, regulations of May 1882 were intended only as temporary measures until a future revision of the laws concerning the Jews but remained in effect for more than thirty years.
Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom, controlled by British immigration law and to an extent by British nationality law, has been significant, in particular from the Republic of Ireland and from the former British Empire, especially India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Hong Kong. Since the accession of the UK to the European Communities in the 1970s and the creation of the EU in the early 1990s, immigrants relocated from member states of the European Union, exercising one of the European Union's Four Freedoms. In 2021, since Brexit came into effect, previous EU citizenship's right to newly move to and reside in the UK on a permanent basis does not apply anymore. A smaller number have come as asylum seekers seeking protection as refugees under the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention.
"Independent Jewish Voices". Independent Jewish Voices. Archived from the original on 10 February 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
The British Brothers' League (BBL) was a British anti-immigration, extraparliamentary, pressure group, the "largest and best organised" of its time. Described as proto-fascist, the group attempted to organise along paramilitary lines.
Major Sir William Eden Evans Gordon was a British member of Parliament (MP) who had served as a military diplomat in India.
The historical immigration to Great Britain concerns the movement of people, cultural and ethnic groups to the British Isles before Irish independence in 1922. Immigration after Irish independence is dealt with by the article Immigration to the United Kingdom since Irish independence.
Russians in the United Kingdom are Russians, or the persons born in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation, who are or were citizens of or residents of the United Kingdom.
After Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933 and enacted policies that would culminate in the Holocaust, Jews began to escape German-occupied Europe and the United Kingdom was one of the destinations. Some came on transit visas, which meant that they stayed in Britain temporarily, while waiting to be accepted by another country. Others entered the country by having obtained employment or a guarantor, or via Kindertransport. There were about 70,000 Jewish refugees who were accepted into Britain by the start of World War II on 1 September 1939, and an additional 10,000 people who made it to Britain during the war.
Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of "native-born" or established inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of anti-immigration and immigration-restriction measures. Despite the name, and in the US in particular, this position is usually held by the descendants of immigrants themselves, and is not a movement led by Indigenous peoples, as opposited to Nativists in Europe who are descended from native peoples such as Celts, Anglo-Saxons or Norsemen.
The word ‘pogrom’ is derived from the Russian word 'погром.' In Russia, the word pogrom was first used to describe the anti-Semitic attacks that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. There was a second wave of pogroms in the early 20th century, between 1903 and 1906. Despite there being only two 'waves' of pogroms, there had been a culture of anti-Semitism existing for centuries.
United Kingdom immigration law is the law that relates to who may enter, work in and remain in the United Kingdom. There are many reasons as to why people may migrate; the three main reasons being seeking asylum, because their home countries have become dangerous, people migrating for economic reasons and people migrating to be reunited with family members.
British Jews have experienced antisemitism - discrimination and persecution as Jews - since a Jewish community was first established in England in 1070. They experienced a series of massacres in the Medieval period, which culminated in their expulsion from England in 1290.
William Henry Wilkins (1860–1905) was an English writer, best known as a royal biographer and campaigner for immigration controls. He used the pseudonym W. H. de Winton.
The Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor or, as it is most generally known, the Jewish Board of Guardians, was a charity established by the upper class Jewish community in the East End of London in 1859. The board sought to provide relief for Jewish immigrants and soon became the central provider of relief for the Jewish poor in London.
Although some means of controlling foreign visitors to the United Kingdom existed before 1905, modern immigration border controls as now understood originated then. Although an Alien Act was passed in 1793 and remained in force to some extent or other until 1836, there were no controls between then and 1905 barring a very loosely policed system of registration on entry.
The history of the Jews in Paraguay has been characterised by migration of Jewish people, mainly from European countries, to the South American nation, and has resulted in the Jewish Paraguayan community numbering 1,000 today.
Since the foundation of the Conservative Party in 1834, there have been numerous instances of antisemitism in the party, from both Conservative party leaders and other party figures.
Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust, is a book by Louise London, first published by Cambridge University Press in 2000. It details the British government's response to refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi Europe between the years 1933 and 1948.