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27.
One possible approach
would be to seek an express
some 40 cases a
commitment to a new programme to resettle
month, initially for one year after the "SCORRI" intake
ends. We should need, in consultation with Hong Kong, to
devise criteria to put to the Home Office which would
produce sufficient refugees to produce this rate of The Home office may however resist,
and we may have to settle for less than this rate at the
end of the day.
resettlement
28.
for
in UK.
Another option could be to press
to press the Home Office to
continue to accept at our proposed monthly rate of 40 all
refugees in Hong Kong who qualify under the existing
"relaxed" criteria. Such an approach would avoid the need
formal consideration of what would have to be treated
as а new intake. We would need first to assure ourselves
that sufficient cases could be identified to make this
numerically worthwhile. (Whereas one of the UK voluntary
agencies involved in resettlement now estimates that 1000,
rather than 420, refugees in Hong Kong may be qualified under the "SCORRI" criteria, Hong Kong puts the figure at about 680). If the Home Office were to agree to accept
these refugees we should conduct a further diplomatic
campaign based upon our absorption of these further numbers of refugees and again encouraging other countries to offer
more resettlement places. To say that we were taking more
family reunion cases would probably impress other countries
less than if we were to announce a new intake; whether it
would be presentationally effective would depend on the
additional numbers actually taken.
that all the eligible
29. Alternatively we might press
family reunion cases and that a new intake be accepted.
However, a commitment of this magnitude is likely to be
almost impossible for the Home Office to accept: even though such a commitment by HMG would impress upon other
resettlement countries
almost certainly lead
Hong Kong.
me an
that we
them to accept.
business and would
more refugees from
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