TNAG-1427-FCO40-1910-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-general-1986 — Page 44

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Sir Peter Hordern MP

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SUBJECT:

to Geoffrey Have

Thank you for your letter of 21 November enclosing a

letter from Miss Anne Dew of Goldney Hall, Lower Clifton

Hill, Bristol B S8 IBH about the problem of Vietnamese

refugees in Hong Kong.

As Minister with responsibility for the Hang lam replying.

is

We entirely share Miss Dew's concern about the

plight of the 9,500 Vietnamese boat people who are

currently in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement (the largest

number of any place of first asylum in South East Asia),

and are making every effort to resettle them as quickly

as possible! This has become increasingly difficult in

recent years. As Miss Dew mentions in her letter, we

recently announced that we would accept for resettlement

in the UK s ome 500 Vietname se refugees, mostly from the

camps in Hong Kong (a few will come from other places of

first asy lum in South East Asia). They all have

relatives in the UK, but

the UK, but their cases would normally have

fallen outside the Home Office's immigration criteria for

family reunion cases. Depending on the willingness shown

by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's