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action by us which will provide a lead to the international
community in resettlement, in addition to the lead we have taken on
repatriation.
8.
In the past one powerful argument against a new resettlement
commitment has been the fear that this would induce even greater
numbers of people to leave Vietnam in the hope of resettlement in
the West. We believe that our success so far in getting across the deterrent message of the screening/repatriation policy has
substantially reduced this risk.
We
9.
We have also carefully considered whether our reception facilities and statutory services could deal with an increased flow
of refugees. The voluntary agencies argue that they could cope with as many as 60 per month (as opposed to 20 per month at present).
are more cautious. The agencies and statutory services have not coped with such numbers in recent years though they did manage 40 per month during parts of 1985-86 and 1986-87 without undue
difficulties.
We judge it right to go for about 40 per month again. If sustained over a period of 2 years from now this would amount to
an additional commitment of 1000. Details of a possible package on
these lines are set out in an annex to this minute.
10. The proposed package seeks to take in both people who have a
greater ability to adapt to life in this country and to make a
success of the opportunity we are offering and also the longstayers for whom the humanitarian case is strongest. The Hong Kong Government have offered to assist in identifying suitable candidates
for us. Among those with potential to settle here, the Training Agency will be able to help with guidance on the assessments on
which final selection will be made by immigration officials. Most of the more skilled refugees have, of course, left Hong Kong some time ago so it would be difficult and would give the wrong signals to go further towards an exclusively skills based package at this
stage.
11. We have in the past had problems with resettling boat people here and those problems are not going to disappear entirely: we
Pour le anticipate for example that some housing agencies will be here
not welcome
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having