Alien

Alien, (A) a child born abroad of a foreign father (unless the child's paternal grandfather was a natural born subject), or (B) the child of an alien enemy, born in the United Kingdom. At common law aliens were subject to very many disqualifications, the nature of which will appear from the Statute of 1844, which greatly relaxed the law in their favour. This Act has, along with many others, been repealed by the Naturalisation Act, 1870, which enacts (subject to certain provisos) that real and personal property may be acquired or disposed of by an alien in the same manner as by a natural-born British subject, and that a title to real and personal property may be derived from an alien in the same manner as from a natural-born British subject. The Act also enables naturalised aliens to divest themselves of their status in certain cases, and enables British born subjects to resign their claim to be regarded as such; and while it enables British subjects to renounce allegiance to Her Majesty, provides for their readmission to British nationality, and contains enactments with respect to the national status of women and children. An alien is disqualified both for the Parliamentary and municipal franchise, and also from being a member of either House of Parliament or of the Privy Council. In France a child born of foreign parents is an alien. In the United States children born abroad are not aliens provided their fathers are citizens. An alien, though not in possession of the same political and municipal rights as a citizen, is protected as regards person and, property.