Over the past two years, the Government has increased the rate at which it is overturning deportation orders issued against radical leftists exiled to the mainland under colonial rule.
According to Security Bureau figures, 46 deportation orders were approved for suspension or rescission between July 1997 and last month.
Twenty-seven orders have been rescinded since May 1999, compared with 19 between the handover and May 1999. A total of 111 applications have been received since the handover.
About 40,000 Hong Kong residents were deported to the mainland under a now-defunct expulsion law between 1949 and 1971.
Those deported were banned from entering Hong Kong unless the deportation order was rescinded.
The South China Morning Post reported last week that two prominent exiles - Tsang Chiu-for, 76, and Lo Tong, 85 - had been allowed to visit Hong Kong since the handover.
Mr Tsang was the highest-ranking ethnic Chinese police officer until his deportation on suspicion of spying for the mainland in 1961.