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without a specified document of identity may be henceforth employed or continue to be employed; those already employed shall have their employment summarily terminated. Employers are to keep records both of the names of their employees and the type of document by virtue of which each employee is employable. These measures, again, may be inconvenient but they are essential.
These measures are directed, as I have said, at illegal immigration.
A person who is apprehended when not carrying a document of identity will be taken to a police post and later to a police station. He will be given every opportunity and facility to make contact by telephone with his family or relatives or his lawyers, to establish that he is not an illegal immigrant or is otherwise lawfully here. If he fails to do so, he will be handed over to the Immigration Department, where again he will be given further facilities to prove he is entitled to be in Hong Kong.
I emphasize that the measures are not aimed at Hong Kong residents, but I need hardly add that those who through carelessness, forgetfulness or indifference do not carry their document of identity will have only themselves to blame if they spend some hours in anxiety and some degree of inconvenience and discomfort, and at the end be fined.
We wish it be known that although we will give this bill all 3 readings today, it is not legislation that has been not fully deliberated upon or rushed. It has been absolutely necessary, in order not to create an even bigger build-up of illegal immigrants waiting to make the dash, to keep these proposals highly confidential, but on that basis Your Excellency has consulted Executive Council at
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