CONFIDENTIAL
enter Hong Kong for "a better living" and to join her mother and three brothers who were also living there, did not constitute a good ground for giving permission to land. We had to accept this decision which has attracted the attention of some international relief agencies : so many illegal immigrants claim to have relatives in Hong Kong that to allow close relationship as a ground for admission would severely frustrate the object of keeping the
Hong ong have told us that spouses numbers of immigrants down.
A
and parents with young children would not normally be separated. Moreover we have recently been assured that no illegal immigrant who is ill is refused entry: there is no known case of an elderly person seeking admission.
4. Members of the New China News Agency assured the Political Adviser in January that those returned are not unduly harshly
treated. Border intelligence reports have given a similar
picture. There has been one report of rumours that repatriated emigrants are often assaulted. This could be true; but we have no evidence to corroborate such rumours, and it seems equally possible that they are being deliberately spread to dissuade other prospective emigrants.
5.
A separate submission about the possible arrival of refugees from the fighting in Vietnam and the Khmer Republic is in preparation. The Hong Kong Government have contingency plans in readiness for this eventuality which prima facie seem appropriate to Hong Kong's
present circumstances.
Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department
7 April 1975
CONFIDENTIAL
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