AL
CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Hong Kong
10/2/
씨티
September 2, 1976
The Hon. C. P. Haddon-Cave, C.M.G., J.P.
The Acting Chief Secretary
Government Secretariat
Lower Albert Road
Hong Kong
Clean Philip.
I would like to bring to your attention a matter of some urgency concerning the documentation required by United States law for admission to the United States of Vietnamese refugees from the MV Ava.
On September 1 two officers of my staff, Mr. Willard B. Devlin, Chief of the Consular Section of the Consulate General, and Mr. Donald A. Young, Acting District Director of US Immigration and Naturalization Service in Hong Kong, met with Mr. Derek Readman, Acting Director of Hong Kong's Department of Immigration, in the latter's office. In their discussion, Mr. Readman set forth the Hong Kong Government's policy on the Vietnamese refugees from the MV Ava, specifi- cally that the refugees were permitted to come ashore only on the condition that they would be the responsibility of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and that the UNHCR would pay all expenses and be responsible for their resettlement. Under these conditions, Hong Kong accepted responsibility solely as the country of "temporary first asylum" and that this responsibility was fullfilled when the refugees were permitted to land. From that point onward, the refugees were the complete responsibility of the UNHCR with no claims to ties with Hong Kong to be derived from their presence here. As an extension of this policy, the Hong Kong Government will not provide the refugees with
documentation at all and certainly no documentation that would give a right of reentry.
any
Messrs. Devlin and Young explained to Mr. Readman that the United States, despite considerable effort by the Consulate General, has been able to approve only 13 persons from the MV Ava for movement to America under the Expanded Parole Program (EPP) which covered the Vietnamese refugees in 1975, and that the reason for this low number is that the quota numbers available under the EPP are nearly exhausted since the program went officially out of existence on June 30 this year.