Exclusive | Wave of illegal immigrants entering Hong Kong triggered by increase in flights from South Asian subcontinent to China, says city’s security chief
- Secretary for Security Chris Tang says increased number of flights from Pakistan and Bangladesh to China has triggered influx of illegal arrivals into city
- He rejects notion city is ‘attractive’ place for illegal immigrants, pointing to stringent screening in granting asylum seekers right to stay as so-called non-refoulement claimants
The recent increased number of flights from Pakistan and Bangladesh to China has triggered an influx of illegal immigrants into Hong Kong, according to the city’s security chief who also warns of the low rate of success in them securing the right to stay while seeking asylum.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung on Wednesday rejected the notion that Hong Kong was an “attractive” place for illegal immigrants as it had stringent screening in granting asylum seekers the right to stay in the city as so-called non-refoulement claimants. But he conceded those sneaking across the border might think otherwise.
Tang told the Post in an interview that most of the illegal immigrants first travelled to China by flight, then came to the southern part of the country such as Shenzhen and Zhuhai where they would later head to Hong Kong on boats. They would then call police after arriving in one of the city’s “little islands” and surrender themselves, he added.
“It seems that their objective is to claim non-refoulement. After they claim, they are on recognisance,” Tang said, adding that many of them took the chance to take up illegal work during their stay in the city. “They are not detained. They are [able to] walk free.”
“In the process, they have a few years, they can enjoy whatever they want here, like they can do illegal jobs here. For them, it’s attractive. But for me, I would say it’s not attractive because the success rate is so low,” he said, stressing in the end only about 1 per cent of applicants could eventually attain non-refoulement status in Hong Kong.
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Official data from the force showed that a total of 119 people from South Asian countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan were arrested in nine incidents between October 22 and November 6.
In one of the recent cases, 13 men from Bangladesh were found stranded on Shek Kwu Chau island in the city’s southwestern waters.
A total of 1,241 illegal immigrants were arrested in the city in the first 10 months of this year. They included 968 non-Chinese entrants who came from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam. The remaining 273 were mainland Chinese.
That was a spike from last year when only 1,155 illegal immigrants, comprising 482 non-Chinese entrants and 673 mainlanders, were caught throughout the year.
Tang said three quarters of South Asian illegal immigrants were actually arriving in the past three months since August, when it became more convenient for them to visit China with more flights available from mainly Bangladesh and Pakistan.
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Hong Kong police recently joined forces with mainland authorities to mount a two-pronged attack on human trafficking by adopting a series of tactics on land and at sea designed to catch people who attempted to evade immigration controls and the traffickers who transported them.
The city does not grant asylum as it is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. But it offers non-refoulement, an assurance that asylum seekers will not be sent to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured.
Applicants are not allowed to work while waiting for the outcome of their cases and must rely on minimum support provided mainly by a government-designated organisation for their day-to-day lives.
Those who succeed and are recognised as refugees are referred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for resettlement in a third country. Those who fail are sent back to their countries.
Tang said the city would take a long time to deport the illegal immigrants due to its “very robust system”, which allowed them to make claims, lodge appeals and judicial review on different levels of courts, a process that can take years.
Human rights lawyers and groups have criticised the extensive process which they said left many in years of limbo, uncertainty and even causing them to lapse into depression. Some pro-establishment lawmakers had hit out at authorities’ slow actions which they said had led to overstaying by bogus claimants that contributed to the higher crime rate.
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Asked whether the process could be streamlined, the security chief said a balance had to be struck between efficiency and fairness.
Tang noted some of the non-refoulement claimants had repeatedly committed offences, adding: “In different sectors of society, you have good guys and you have bad guys.”
