I'VE noticed a lot of Westerners living on Lamma Island. Most of them, I am told, are working in Hongkong as artists, waiters or even as illegal hawkers.
They usually arrive in Hongkong with a visitor visa that allows them to stay for three months. When their time runs out, they hop on the ferry to Macau or China for a day so they can pick up a new three-month stamp when they return.
It's a pity they have to leave their own homes to find a job, and I praise them for their courage to cross the ocean and settle in a new place.
But it's unfair that they can jump the queue through this apparent immigration loophole, when other foreign workers trying to come to Hongkong have to wait in their home countries, sometimes for months, before they can come to share the pie.
This is particularly so when the police actively look for illegal Asian workers on construction sites and places like Shamshuipo while their Western counterparts can be working in the many English pubs or hawking around the city, also illegally.
I wish to know whether the Immigration Department is aware of the situation and what has been done to remedy this? CHEUK-WAH SIT, CHARLES Kowloon
