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In the talks yesterday and previously with the Hong Kong Government, we have mentioned, however, the possibility that we can admit otherwise qualified Vietnamese refugees under one of our long-standing refugee programs, the Conditional Entry Program, also known as the P-7 Program. (This program has been used exclusively for Chinese and White Russian refugees in Hong Kong but due to a change in the US Government's fiscal year from July 1 to October 1 we have no numbers left for Chinese refugees. Paradoxically, however, until September 30 we have numbers for non-Chinese, i.e., Vietnamese refugees now in Hong Kong.) A requirement of the P-7 Program is that the country of asylum document the refugee to enable him to be returned to the country of asylum by the United States within two years of entry. Without such documen- tation, P-7 status cannot be granted and there is no way under the law that this requirement can be waived. The EPP, as I have noted, is phasing out, so there is no chance of moving additional refugees to the United States through that program.
Therefore, unless some documentation can be issued by the Hong Kong Government which meets the minimum requirement of United States law I very much fear that there can be no additional Vietnamese' refugees going from Hong Kong to the United States. At present the US Immigration Service here has completed the P-7 processing on 35 MV Ava refugees and requires only reentry documentation to issue them visas. It is expected that the remaining 10 refugees whom we had hoped to take in this way will have completed their processing in the next few days, and would then also need reentry permits prior to movement. The Intergovern- mental Committee on European Migration and private agencies have arranged to pay transportation costs and have provided sponsorship in the United States.
I would like to suggest a possible compromise which could allow the United States to continue participating in this international humanitarian effort and yet would not seem to be much of a departure from Hong Kong Government policy on the refugees. I am told that the reentry document could be given directly to the Consulate General and not to the refugee himself. We could guarantee that the document would be retained by our Immigration and Naturalization Service in the refugees file under cover of a note restricting its use only to deportation by the United States within the two-year period. The refugee would be unaware of the existence of the document and even if he found out about it would have no right to use it. Hong Kong has little reason to fear that any of these refugees would be deported by the United States.
A check of our files indicates that since 1970