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Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong
to the
current situation.
23. The attached policy paper and HKD's covering submission of 18 April, explain fully the background
The Secretary of State
decided in response to the submission that the
possibility of repatriating refugees involuntarily to
Vietnam should not be pursued. He agreed that we
should seek to persuade the Home Office that the UK
should both take the 400-500 family reunion cases, and
also indicate a willingness to accept further (perhaps
undefined) numbers for resettlement here in future
years.
24. Meanwhile in April the Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration (SCORRI) published a report entitled "Refugees and Asylum with Special
Reference to the Vietname se"
I t recommended
inter alia that the closed camps
in Hong Kong should
be abolished and their inmates transferred to open centres; that the UK's immigration criteria for family reunion cases should be relaxed in respect of
Vietnamese in camp s in countries of temporary asylum;
and that this UK initiative should be used to attract
offers of additional resettlement places from other
countries for refugees now in Hong Kong.
25. After lengthy correspondence between the
the Secretary
of State and the Home Secretary, the Home Office have
agreed to accept the family reunion cases recommended
by SCORRI (some 500); and, depending оп other
countries' willingness to respond to Hong Kong's
needs, to consider accepting further limited numbers of refugees from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government
have similarly agreed to consider absorbing into Hong
Kong a limited number of Vietnamese refugees of ethnic Chinese origin who are at present in open camps in the
territory, provided this forms part of a concerted to reduce drastically the size of
the refugee camp population in Hong Kong. Hong Kong
international effort to
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