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of all evaders. Based on this guesswork, there may be 16,000 such persons in Hong Kong at present. Some may be children, aged or handicapped and looked after by relatives but the majority are likely to be self-supporting and, under present Government policies, manage to survive without an i.d. card. This is borne out by the fact that in 1978 and 1979, over 2,200 persons who applied for the first time for an identity card claimed to have been living in Hong Kong for ten years or more. Members of this group have not been identified as particularly associated with criminal, or any other undesirable activities.
8.
The detected crime rate among illegal immigrants who have surfaced is not above average. But since they have been able to lead a normal life there is no reason why it should be. Nevertheless, whatever the statistics, there is a widespread belief among Hong Kong residents that illegal immigrants have a disproportionate involvement in crime.
First Assumption
9.
We assume first that all the measures in para 4 are enacted. This would mean a dramatic change for the worse in the life which evaders would expect to live in Hong Kong. At present they can obtain an i.d. card on application and then have the opportunity to live and work in Hong Kong in much the same way as the indigenous residents.
10.
Instead, life would at once become furtive and fearful. The evaders would have to avoid all contact with officialdom, whether for housing, social, medical, educational or other purposes. No law abiding employer would consider offering them work and the less law abiding would almost certainly do so only in circumstances of exploitation, through poor wages, long hours, dangerous conditions, etc. Blackmail by the employer would be matched by blackmail by unscrupulous persons who knew the evader's background. To meet these demands and perhaps merely to survive, the evader could well be forced to turn to crime. The nature of the crime might be the more serious since he would go to greater lengths to avoid detection; detection would mean not only punishment for the offence but also repatriation to China. There would be secondary, undesirable effects: in order to find work or obtain services freely available to indigenous residents he might seek to corrupt an employer, his staff or Government officers.
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