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migrants" from genuine refugees, against the day when repatriation
of the former might be possible. Screening would be done by an
independent tribunal in the presence of a UNHCR observer. Those
identified as refugees would be placed in closed centres pending
resettlement. Economic migrants would be detained as illegal
centres
immigrants. Alternatively, all would be detained initially as
illegal immigrants, leaving UNHCR to advise the Hong Kong Government
that particular cases should be given refugee status and transferred
to closed centres.
21.
The advantages of this scheme would be:
(a) It might deter some economic migrants from coming to Hong Kong;
(b) it would be in line with Hong Kong's treatment of undocumented
migrants from other countries, including China;
(c) those granted refugee status would have a reasonable
resettlement in the West.
22. The disadvantages would be:
prospect of
(a) If arrivals nevertheless continued, Hong Kong would find itself
stuck with a growing number of economic migrants with no prospect of
resettlement;
(b) a tougher regime than that now applied in the closed centres
might be needed to control those facing the prospect of ultimate
repatriation or very long confinement;
(c) resettlement countries might take advantage of a reduction in
the "refugee" population to scale down further their level of
offtake from Hong Kong;
(d) unless the refugees were imprisoned as illegal immigrants after
due trial and conviction in the Courts of Hong Kong, this scheme is
likely to put the UK in breach of Article 9 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
23. Again, UNHCR's support would be needed. They have not been
consulted officially. Hong Kong believe that UNHCR would welcome
such a step towards application of a more correct definition of
refugee status, over which they would have control; UNHCR would also
be able to evade responsibility for those not identified as
refugees. But although one senior UNHCR official has himself proposed such a scheme informally, UKMIS Geneva does not believe
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