Brandishing their one-way permits they come, the lumpen-proles and the not-so-lumpen, sweeping into Hong Kong in their thousands. They are brethren, oh brothers. They are fellow Chinese, whom we cannot turn back. Many have husbands or fathers in the territory.
We cannot turn them back.
Could we look ourselves in the eye (chanting 'mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fattest cat of all?') if we deported children who had slipped in without a permit? And yet there are rules to be stuck to, lest we be swamped. Lest the daily limit of 150 one-way permit-holders be exceeded and our capacity to school, house and care for them be overwhelmed.
Lest the labour market be flooded with cheap labour.
Lest not-so-wealthy wives and children be left in China while permits are sold to the highest bidder.
Lest we tolerant people behave towards our country cousins from up the delta the way less tolerant peoples elsewhere behave towards immigrants from Hong Kong.
So when all of a sudden news leaks out that the Chinese authorities quietly exceeded the 155,000-person annual quota by 6,500 last year legislators want to know why.