Aliens Order 1920

Aliens Order 1920
Statutory Rules and Orders
Parliament of the United Kingdom
CitationSR&O 1920/448
Dates
Made25 March 1920
Other legislation
Made under

The Aliens Order 1920 (SR&O 1920/448) was a British statutory instrument created under the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 that extended powers over the entry of immigrants into the country. The order made passports obligatory, and it was brought out in the context of a period of widespread unemployment following the First World War.[1][2][3][4][5] As a result of the order, all aliens seeking employment, or residence, were required to register with the police and a 'central register of aliens' was maintained under the direction of the Home Secretary, who was Edward Shortt at the time the order came about.[6]

The order also required that all aliens entering Britain to be subjected to a medical evaluation, and it further permitted immigration officers to refuse entry to anyone deemed "a lunatic, idiot, or mentally deficient" or if "for medical reasons his admission is undesirable," so long as the determination be "certified by a medical inspector".[6] Inspection did not usually require a medical officer, but was largely in the domain of immigration.[6]

This order remained in force until it was replaced by the Aliens Order 1953 (SI 1953/1671).[7]

  1. ^ On the State of the Public Health: The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health. H.M. Stationery Office. 1922. p. 170.
  2. ^ Steiner, W. A. (1951). "Aiding and Abetting. Aliens Order, 1920". The Modern Law Review. 14 (3): 361–363. ISSN 0026-7961. JSTOR 1089202.
  3. ^ "British nationality and status of aliens bill. [H.L.] (Hansard, 18 May 1920)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  4. ^ Reinecke, Christiane (April 2009). "Governing Aliens in Times of Upheaval: Immigration Control and Modern State Practice in Early Twentieth-Century Britain, Compared with Prussia". International Review of Social History. 54 (1): 39–65. doi:10.1017/S0020859009000029. ISSN 1469-512X.
  5. ^ John Torpey (2000). The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State. Cambridge University Press. p. 116. ISBN 0-521-63249-8.
  6. ^ a b c Taylor, Becky (15 April 2016). "Immigration, Statecraft and Public Health: The 1920 Aliens Order, Medical Examinations and the Limitations of the State in England". Social History of Medicine. 29 (3): 512–533. doi:10.1093/shm/hkv139. PMC 4966482. PMID 27482146.
  7. ^ Richard Plender (1988). International Migration Law (2nd ed.). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 90. ISBN 90-247-3604-8.