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Conditional Entry Programme, and they have asked if refugees qualified for entry to the United States may transit Hong Kong on their way there. There is no similar authorization in other parts of the region.
7.
The people attached to the US Consulate- General would control the screening in third countries, but the Americans have accepted that our Director of Immigration would control the flow in. This would ensure that not too many refugees (who had in any case been virtually guaranteed entry to the United States) would be here at any one time. For our part the flow would be regulated by our assessment of the "political temperature" and local feelings.
8.
In our discussions with the Americans, we have said that we would as far as possible apply our normal rules for transit facilities. There is a safeguard in that we would insist that Sampatkumar, the UNHCR representative in Kuala Lumpur, would give his guarantee in the case of each Vietnamese in transit. In this way we would follow the principles that we hammered out in the case of the 'Ava'. We have aired our usual concerns fully with the Americans and they know that we have no wish for Hong Kong to become either a dumping ground for refugees or a "processing point" while decisions are taken about their entry to the United States. We are satisfied that the Americans fully understand our fears and will cooperate to avoid the risks.
9.
In order to keep everything under the strictest control we are proposing to discuss possible transit arrangements first with Sampat kumar and we think it prudent to arrange a test run to make sure that there are no hidden traps, or to iron out the wrinkles. This means that the Americans might arrange for between 20 and 30 persons to be screened, for example in Malaysia, who would then transit Hong Kong on their way to the States but remaining in Hong Kong for no more than a matter of days, and all the time under the aegis of the UNHCR.
10.
The success of these arrangements depends on us keeping as closely as possible to normal Hong Kong immigration procedures in the case of transit passengers and not letting too much loose talk develop about there being any grandiose scheme. Our present idea is that we might limit numbers in Hong Kong at any one time to, perhaps, 30 or 40. Since the Americans have told us that in their estimation there are only some 2,500 boat refugees in the region, and that the USA might not be expected to take more than about half, I hope that there will be no
CONFIDENTIAL
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