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CH006583
The outflow of Vietnamese Land People to Thailand continues at low levels. Resettlement of cases of interest periodically but temporarily reduces the population of land people held in the border area.
Orderly migration from Vietnam has increased greatly over recent years to the level where it exceeds clandestine departures. It is to be hoped that current difficulties in the operation of major migration programs from Vietnam will not impede the continued success of orderly migration in the future.
Orderly migration was intended to have an effect on the overall level of outflow. It has probably reduced the illegal departures of some would-be migrants eligible for the various programs and humanitarian cases eligible for those programs based on humanitarian criteria. However, by its nature, it can have no impact on the departure rate of the most problematic element in current first refuge caseloads persons eligible neither for refugee or migrant entry to third countries. Moreover, because of its uncertainty (to the would-be-emigrant) and the time involved in the orderly migration programs, illegal emigration remains a preferred method for many people.
Cambodia
The registered population of Khao-I-Dang has been reduced to some 15,000. It is unlikely that a significant proportion of the remaining registered population will be resettled under present policies. A considerable-- proportion of the Family Card Holders are likely to be resettled if and when the Thais make them available. long term future of those Cambodians not acceptable for resettlement remains unclear. The attitudes of both the Thais and the Vietnamese/Heng Samrin regime do not appear to be favourable to voluntary repatriation at present.
The
A consensus has evolved that the evacuees, including the Ration Card Holders in the Khao-I-Dang annexe, should not be candidates for refugee resettlement. At the end of this dry season the Ration Card Holders are likely to be relocated to an evacuation site. In the short term the challenge for policy makers appears to be to maintain the distinction between the evacuees and Cambodians registered with UNHCR, while ensuring adequate protection and assistance arrangements for the evacuees. In the medium to longer term there will be a need to devise ways in which voluntary repatriation may be achieved.
While orderly migration from Cambodia presents special difficulties and numbers involved are not likely to be large, equity at least would appear to require that the possibility be fully explored.