With 10 days left before their temporary “safe haven” status was set to expire, President Joe Biden has extended Hongkongers’ refuge in the United States by two years, noting “compelling foreign policy reasons”. China, Biden wrote in the memorandum announcing the extension on Thursday, “has continued its assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy, undermining its remaining democratic processes and institutions, imposing limits on academic freedom, and cracking down on freedom of the press”. “Offering safe haven for Hong Kong residents who have been deprived of their guaranteed freedoms in Hong Kong furthers United States interests in the region,” he said. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though Beijing has previously condemned the US programme as an “anti-China disruption”. The memo authorises the Department of Homeland Security to give US-based Hongkongers 24 more months of what is formally known as deferred enforced departure (DED). The status means that they are not subject to removal for that period of time and can apply for a US work permit. The offer does not apply to Hongkongers who have not “continuously resided” in the US as of Thursday. It also does not apply to those who voluntarily return to Hong Kong after the announcement. The previous memorandum from August 2021, which provided 18 months of DED status, was set to expire February 5. The status was issued in response to Beijing’s crackdown on opposition lawmakers and activists after imposing a national security law on Hong Kong. In March 2021, ahead of the first memo, Homeland Security had estimated that the number of Hongkongers eligible for DED designation was 3,860. The new Biden memo would presumably expand coverage, since it would include Hongkongers who had arrived in the US in the 18 months between August 2021 and now. China blasts US for second time over ‘safe-haven’ scheme for Hongkongers Speaking before the announcement, exiled Hong Kong activist Sunny Cheung said that some Hongkongers were “desperately” waiting in limbo. Had the extension not been granted in time, Hongkongers in the US “would lose status and access to work authorisation and those without other options (some might be in the process of applying for various green card pathways) would be forced to remain in the US undocumented”, said Danilo Zak of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington-based immigration advocacy group. But Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University, said that would not have meant they would have been deported immediately. “You cannot just pick someone up and kick them out. There’s due process for everyone in the United States,” he said. First, Homeland Security would have to issue a subpoena for individuals to appear before an immigration judge, Yale-Loehr said. Then those individuals could make a case for asylum, a first step to permanent residence, better known as a green card. According to Cheung, however, asylum wait times are inconsistent and can be lengthy. He has not heard back from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency after filing his application six months ago. Last week, Syracuse University reported that US asylum applications are at an all-time high, exceeding 800,000 as of December. Anna Kwok, executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), said that while she celebrated the “two-year lifeline” the Biden administration had granted, more could be done to ensure that Hongkongers have adequate time to plan their lives. “Without longer-term solutions that offer humanitarian pathways, a US-based movement for the cause of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong – against Beijing’s transnational repression – isn’t sustainable,” she said. Hongkongers are lobbying Congress to make it easier for them to stay in both the short and long term – and for those currently outside the US to apply for refugee status. One protection they seek is Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is assigned by the Department of Homeland Security and offers similar benefits as DED. Hong Kong protesters face uncertainty rebuilding lives after jail A key difference, Zak of the National Immigration Forum said, is that TPS requires an lengthy inter-agency consultation to issue while an administration can issue DED status more swiftly without agency review. “While this makes extensions easier as well, it also means that administrations can more easily end DED protections than TPS protections,” he added. Offering TPS to Hongkongers is part of a bill that Representative Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York, said he would reintroduce this session of Congress. The bill would also offer a pathway for “highly skilled” applicants, and let Hong Kong be treated separately from China for the purposes of numerical limitations on immigrant visas. The bill passed the House in 2020; it died in the Senate because of objections by Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who contended it could lead to spies infiltrating the US. Another bill introduced in the last Congress, called the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act, would designate Hongkongers as Priority 2 refugees “of special humanitarian concern”, which would let them bypass referrals from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, non-governmental organisations and embassies. Jeffrey Ngo, a senior policy and research fellow at HKDC, called for more resources at USCIS. “As somebody with first-hand experience navigating such bureaucratic hurdles as applying for an Employment Authorisation Document and requesting advance parole to travel abroad, I’m well aware of the anxieties shared by fellow Hongkongers whose very survival depends on a functional, humane immigration system.”