TNAG-2281-FCO40-3281-Illegal-immigration-into-Hong-Kong-from-China-and-Taiwan-1991 — Page 137

Replies to:-

1

SH EMBASSY

pue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

75383 Paris Cédex 08

JD/cr

-

K341/6

CONSULAR SECTION BRITISH EMBASSY

16, rue d'Anjou

75008 Paris

Tél: 42 66 91 42

Director of Immigration

7 Gloucester Road

Wan chai

Hong Kong

CH.T.C.

FCO

b.coN.T.C.D.,

HK Dept. FCO

Me Barras.

17 December 1990

Hong Kong Certificates of Identity

Would you please refer to Miss Y.H. Wo's letter ref. TSOD 60-90) of 19 November about

application for the renewal of a Certificate of Identity. What follows applies not only to

case but to all such applications

forwarded to you.

2. In her letter K341/1 of 20 August 1986 the then Consul, Miss Hunt, reported to you an approach we had received from the French authorities requesting that we desist from cancelling the Certificates of Identity of those who had been granted a 10-year residence permit. Copies of the Ministry's Note (with translation) and our reply were enclosed. It evident that the advice given to your Department by the French Consulate in Hong Kong is at odds with the Ministry's ruling.

this

year

is

3. The question arose again recently and we pointed out to the Ministry that we had never had a reply to our Note of 18 August 1986 in spite of a reminder in October 1987. In April the Ministry sent us the enclosed note (a translation is attached) in which the position is quite clear the issue of a 10-year residence permit does not entitle the holder in any way to a French travel document. During discussions with the Ministry officials were at pains to stress to me that a foreigner's residence is never permanent. He may be here for forty years but he is required to renew his residence permit every 10 years. They further argued that if a foreign resident acted in such а way that as a result of judicial procedures he was to become the subject of deportation or expulsion order there must be somewhere he can be sent or to which he has free entry. By withdrawing Certificates of Identity we are presenting the French authorities with an unacceptable immigration fait-accompli.