TNAG-0971-FCO40-1190-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-the-UK-1980 — Page 155

CONFIDENTIAL

31

AKK 243/2

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51 2 2 APR 1980

DESK OFFICED

INDEX

John Margetson Esq CMG

HANOI

PA.

REGISTRY

on Taken

AW.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Mr. Willingband 21.4

London SW1A 2AH

17 April 1980

Ли Чужие

Motligh

зіміча

17.4

Some important points for no i watts here, manly

Dear Jolen, li safeferned the current ofK & quota & to get HR

KRMI

me

a masuable share REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM: FAMILY REUNIONS AND HANC EMBASSY WORKLOAD

see W. P.

Jandy

(pain 6)

देशाच

Leonard Figg and I read with concern and interest your series of letters (24379) of 21 March to me (not to all) setting out a number of problems, both practical and political, arising from current policy on family reunion for Vietnamese refugees accepted in the United Kingdom. I have since also seen your letter under the same reference of 27 March to Kevin Burns about the orderly departure programme. At my request, on 9 April, SEAD called a meeting of interested FCO Departments, at which a representative of the Home Office Immigration and Nationality Department was also present. This letter is to let you know what action we have in hand, though by the time it reaches you various aspects may have been overtaken by subsequent action.

2.

The first is how Your letters raise two sets of questions. to reduce to a level consistent with the Embassy's resources and other tasks the burden of processing individual case papers from

I Vietnamese refugees, their families and other aspirants. understand that you have already taken steps to streamline some of the paper work at your end by commissioning a series of pro forma letters. MVD and the Home Office are looking at possible further improvements and are hastening the process of reproduction. Additionally, at the 9 April meeting there was no objection in principle (if a standard format for visa promise letters which meets Vietnamese requirements can be produced) to as much as possible of the paperwork arising from a plications received at this end being done here.

3. The Home Office commented at the meeting that the recent spate of authorisations to issue visa promise letters reflected at least in part the clearance of their own backlog by temporary additional clerical staff. Some of the individual cases to which you refer were in fact authorised last Autumn. That, and the fact that most of the recent family reunion cases involve Southern Vietnamese from the Sibonga and Roachbank, rather than the Northern Vietnamese reaching the UK through the Hong Kong quota, may make recent levels

isleading. The Home Office have so far been considering each

/family

- 1 -

CONFIDENTIAL