[JA2AKN]
CONFIDENTIAL
VISIT BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO BONN: 3-4 OCTOBER
Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong
Essential Facts
General
1985
1. 10,500 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement:
largest number of any place of first asylum in South East Asia.
Because of diminishing resettlement prospects: 60% have been there
over 3 years. Arrival rate has slowed since introduction of closed
camp policy, but flow nevertheless continues.
Report of Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration (SCORRI)
2. A Home Office White Paper in response to SCORRI's report on
"..efugees and Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese" will
be published on 26 September. It will announce inter alia:
(i)
HMG's decision to accept for resettlement some 500 refugees who have relatives in the UK but who would normally fall outside the Home Office's immigration criteria for family reunion
cases. (Most of these are in camps in Hong Kong, but a few
will come from other places of first asylum in South East
Asia);
(ii) that, depending on the willingness shown
the willingness shown by other resettlement
countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs, HMG are prepared to consider accepting further limited numbers from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government would similarly be prepared to absorb limited numbers into Hong Kong from the camps, but again this will depend on other countries' response to the UK's
initiative.
CONFIDENTIAL.