Immigration Act 1971
1 January 1973 | |
Other legislation | |
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Repeals/revokes | |
Status: Amended | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Revised text of statute as amended |
The Immigration Act 1971
Background
Harold Wilson's Labour government proposed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 in response to the possibility of 200,000 Asian immigrants leaving Kenya in 1967 due to its attempts at 'Africanisation'.[citation needed] The act was passed in just three days, partly due to the support and fierce drive of then-Home Secretary, James Callaghan. This broke away from the non-discriminatory immigration policy that had preceded it. The UK Government saw a need to appease Canada, New Zealand, and Australia over the future negative impact on them when Britain would join the European Communities, a matter which would be hardest on people who had emigrated from Britain in the expectation of continued close ties.[2]
Summary
One result of the Act was to stop the permanent migration of workers from the overseas members of the Commonwealth of Nations, unless they met certain tests. It elaborated the definition of "patrial" migrants, first introduced in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, as persons born in the United Kingdom and persons who had resided there for the previous five years or longer.[3]
Right of abode
The Act limited the right to enter and live in the United Kingdom to certain subsets of
That wording of the measure introduced minor confusion into the concept of the right of abode, when it limited right of abode through descent to a CUKC who had a parent who had CUKC status by "birth, adoption, naturalisation or .... registration in the United Kingdom or in any of the islands" or a grandparent CUKC who "at the time of that birth or adoption so had it".[4][5]
Whether "so had it" referred to a grandparent who had CUKC status generally or CUKC status from the UK and islands specifically was decided by the courts to refer to the latter.[4][5]
The right of abode on 31 December 1982 was necessary to become a British citizen on 1 January 1983 under the automatic transition at commencement of CUKC provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981, so failing to meet the interpretation of the right of abode test above resulted in no British citizenship through that route.[4][5]
The British Nationality Act 1981 modified the right of abode section of the Immigration Act 1971 to remove the wording at issue, although the former version still had effect for determinations of British citizenship through right of abode for persons born before 1983, and potentially for their descendants.[4][5]
Immigration Rules
Section 1 of the act provides for "rules laid down by the Secretary of State as to the practice to be followed in the administration of this Act".[6]
In 1972, the
By August 2018, the Immigration Rules stood at almost 375,000 words, often so precise and detailed that the service of a lawyer are typically required to navigate them.
Contents
- Part I Regulation of Entry into and Stay in United Kingdom
- Part II Appeals
- Part III Criminal Proceedings
- Part 3A Maritime enforcement
- Part IV Supplementary
- Schedule 1
- Schedule 2 Administrative Provisions as to Control on Entry etc.
- Schedule 3 Supplementary Provisions as to Deportation
- Schedule 4 Integration with United Kingdom Law of Immigration Law of Islands
- Schedule 4A Enforcement powers in relation to ships
- Schedule 5 The Adjudicators and the Tribunal
- Schedule 6 Repeals
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See also
- UK labour law
- British nationality law
- History of British nationality law
- Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner
Notes
- ^ Short titleas conferred by s. 37 of the act
- S2CID 154673380.
- .
- ^ )
- ^ )
- ^ "Immigration Act 1971: Section 1", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 28 October 1971, 1971 c. 77 (s. 1), retrieved 6 October 2022
- ^ ISBN 9781351010634.
- ^ a b c d e Bozic, Martha; Barr, Caelainn; McIntyre, Niamh (27 August 2018). "Revealed: immigration rules in UK more than double in length". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
Further reading
- Consterdine, Erica. “Community Versus Commonwealth: Reappraising the 1971 Immigration Act.” Immigrants & minorities 35, no. 1 (2017), 1–20
- Hamai, Yumiko. “Imperial Burden or Jews of Africa?: An Analysis of Political and Media Discourse in the Ugandan Asian Crisis (1972)”, 20th Century British History, 22:3 (2011), 415-436.
- J. M. Evans (1972). "Immigration Act 1971". The Modern Law Review. 35 (5): 508–524. JSTOR 1094478.
- Smith, Evan, Marmo, Marinella. “The myth of sovereignty: British immigration control in policy and practice in the nineteen-seventies”, Historical Research, 87:236 (2014), 344-369.
- Spencer, Ian. British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The Making of Multi Racial Britain (London, 1997).
- Williams, Callum (2015). "Patriality, Work Permits and the European Economic Community: The Introduction of the 1971 Immigration Act". Contemporary British History. 29 (4): 508–538. S2CID 154673380.
External links
- The full text of Immigration Act 1971 at Wikisource