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CONFIDENTIAL
30.
Home
that we make а "package"
(Hong Kong Telno
Hong Kong have proposed
approach to the
Office
1875),
including family reunion cases, "hard to resettle" cases, and "UK refusal" cases (230 refugees deemed to have turned down UK offers of resettlement in 1980-81). Although this
is a more complex approach than those we have previously considered it is one that we might also explore with the
Home Office particularly if we can obtain from them an
agreement as to numbers but are unable to agree on the
criteria to be used to fill them.
31.
t would be sensible to discuss the various options
informally with the
the Home Office before deciding precisely
what approach would have the best chance of acceptance.
Our formal bid should probably then be for a new intake
which went beyond family reunion cases: but we might very
well have to settle in the end for а more limited new
intake or even no more
than a compromise based on a
continuation of the current programme.
32.
a
In approaching the Home Office on the need for further
UK resettlement we should stress that the only way to make continued impact on Hong Kong's refugee problem is by increased resettlement (coupled with a continuation of a
deterrent to new arrivals, in the form of closed camps);
and other countries will not resettle more refugees without
another exemplary gesture by UK. We should argue that we are now in a position to meet the conditions set out in the Government's Reply to SCORRI (para 4 above):
shown by Kong's
(a) We can now assess the "willingness
other countries to respond to Hong
needs" mentioned in the Reply. While we may
not yet know the exact numbers to be taken by
all the other countries we have approached,
have indications that the diplomatic
campaign
places
we
has
generated 1,000 "new"
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