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that
would
not otherwise have been offered:
however few further responses to our present
campaign are likely to materialise.
(b) As regards
time": the
must take
continuing
"all the circumstances at the
principal circumstance which we
into account is the need for
action to resolve
international
Hong Kong's refugee problem. Resettlement in
the West is
the only practicable form this
action can take at present. The Home Office
may argue that a further intake would
be 2 don't hund
difficult to present to Parliament and the his a genuine
public. We should counter this by pointing
out that, to the extent that Parliamentary
opinion is exercised about
and public
resettlement
in the
UK of Vietnamese
refugees, it is sympathetic to their plight
and conscious of the need to help them. The
Home Office may argue that Vietnamese
refugees should no longer be given any
preferential treatement in terms of UK
immigration policy. We should point out that
the refugees in Hong Kong are in a special
category, in view of our responsibility for Hong Kong as a dependent territory.
argument.
As well as this, we should make the point that any gap between the end of the "family reunion intake and the start
of a further
further programme is likely to be perceived by other resettlement countries (and Hong Kong) as evidence of the
UK's lack of will; and that this
this will make it very much
harder for us later to persuade them to renew their
commitments as they reach the end of their current resettlement programmes in late 1986 and early 1987.
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