XCSI (88)1
PROPOSED SCREENING PROCEDURES
3
Page
2
The following procedures will, if agreed, come into effect at 0001 hours on 16 June 1988. Upon interception by the Marine Police, boat arrivals will be given a notice warning them of prospective detention as illegal immigrants. If they choose to continue their journey, they will be given food and water and other assistance. For those who refuse to leave Hong Kong, they will, as now, be taken to the Green Island Reception Centre for preliminary examination to determine whether they have come directly from Vietnam or whether they have been permanently settled in China i.e.
i.e. ECVIIS (or are China IIS (CIIs)). They will again be given notice of their position so that the option to leave remains open. ECVIIS and CIIS will be refused permission to land and returned to the People's Republic of China under established procedures. All other Vietnamese will be treated as Vietnamese illegal immigrants (VIIS), but upon transfer to a detention centre will be screened by Immigration Department staff to determine whether or not they are genuine refugees under the terms of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of the Refugees. They will be screened in accordance with the guidelines contained in the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status (Geneva, September 1979). Those screened in will be granted permission to remain as refugees. They will be accommodated in closed centres with others who have already been accorded refugee status pending resettlement to other countries. As stated in para. 16 of XCS (88) 10 it is intended gradually to liberalise these centres and place them under the responsibility of UNHCR. Those screened out will
will be detained in detention centres pending repatriation to Vietnam.
Definition of the Term "Refugee"
4
❤
11
Under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol (Annex B), the term "refugee" refers to a person who "owing to well-founded fear
fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality The UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status provides detailed guidelines regarding what constitutes 'well-founded fear of being persecuted" and how a person may or may
or may not be qualified for refugee status. For example, a person may be moved by the desire for change or adventure, or by family or other reasons of a personal nature. If he is moved exclusively by economic considerations, he is an economic migrant and not a refugee. The UNHCR guidelines also rule out victims of famine or natural disaster unless they also have well-founded fear of persecution. The Immigration Department will conduct the screening in accordance with the guidelines
the guidelines contained the Handbook.
in