residence in Hong Kong before a newly arrived stateless person may sponsor his dependants to join him. Thus, a young man who has only been in Hong Kong for a few months is eligible to have his parents join him if one of them is over 50. Then, under the policy, the parents may at once sponsor their own dependent children, their own parents (i.e. the grandparents), elderly aunts and uncles, as well as other relatives whom it would be inhumane to leave behind on their own or with no means of support. Since one of the original purposes of this policy was to facilitate the reunification in Hong Kong of families having substantial ties here it has long been established practice to allow the initial dependants (the parents in the above example) and their dependants (i. e. the dependants of dependants) to come to Hong Kong simultaneously. The increase of population resulting from this generous policy has hitherto been acceptable because the number of persons involved has been fairly small and has been partly offset by counter flows.
9
In the context of the Vietnam operation the deferment of applications from dependants of dependants was achieved by introducing two temporary rules:
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(a)
(b)
All applications to enter Hong Kong as dependants of persons who had themselves travelled here as dependants on one of the special flights were deferred for the time being, unless there were parti- cularly strong humanitarian grounds.
All applications to enter Hong Kong from parents were deferred for the time being, except in the case of a dependent parent living alone in Vietnam whose family unit was in Hong Kong and whose sponsor was a per- manent resident, or if there were particularly strong humanitarian grounds.
The effect of these two temporary rules was immediate. On the one hand deferment of the great majority of applications involving dependants of dependants has blocked for the time being any large scale transfer of whole family units from Vietnam to Hong Kong. On the other hand the great majority of persons brought to Hong Kong on the special flights have been priority dependants, namely wives, husbands in certain circumstances, young dependent children, and other relatives where there were exceptional humanitarian grounds.
The Present Position on Dependants
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The present position may be summed up as follows:
CONFIDENTIAL ##
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