3. THE INCREASED RESTTLEMENT NUMBERS IN NOVEMBER (COMPARED WITH 3,239 IN OCTOBER) IS WELCOME BUT IS LARGELY DUE TO A BACKLOG ON THE U.S. PROGRAMME BEING MADE UP AND DEPARTURES UNDER A NUMBER OF OTHER PROGRAMMES OF REFUGEES WHO HAD BEEN ACCEPTED SOME TIME AGO. UNLESS THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT NEW OFFERS WE EXPECT A MARKED DECLINE IN RESTTLEMENT IN DECEMBER.
4. OUR PROVISIONIAL ESTIMATE IS THAT AT 1 DECEMBER HONG KONG HAD ROUGHLY 38 PER CENT OF THE TOTAL BOAT REFUGEE BURDEN IN THE REGION. OVER 30,000 OF THE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG HAVE NOW BEEN WAITING IN CAMPS FOR 6 MONTHS OR LONGER.
5. AS BACKGROUND IT IS WORTH NOTING THAT SO FAR THIS YEAR THERE HAVE BEEN AN ESTIMATED 150,000 LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM CHINA. UNLIKE REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM THESE IMMIGRANTS ARE A PERMANENT ADDITION TO HONG KONG'S POPULATION. THE STRAIN WHICH THIS CAUSES MAKES EVEN MORE URGENT THE NEED FOR A HIGHER RATE OF RESTTLEMENT OF VIETNAMESE REFUGEES GIVEN
TEMPORARY ASYLUM.
CATER
FIXES SEAD HIGJSD UND NEWS))
MR MURRAY
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