Refugee issue a burden on Hong Kong ... but Shenzhen detention camp not the solution, says Leung Chun-ying
Chief executive says plan would take too long to organise and Hong Kong needs a quicker solution to influx of asylum seekers
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying dismissed the idea of building a detention camp across the border to house asylum seekers in Hong Kong, though he claimed the refugees were causing great distress to the city.
Responding to a question from the South China Morning Post before the weekly Executive Council meeting yesterday morning, Leung said Ip’s idea would take too long and the city could not afford to wait.
“We [want] to solve the problem with solutions that will take effect in the short term. If we were to find a place on an outlying island [in Shenzhen], it would take a long time to finish the planning stage in Hong Kong,” Leung said.
Ali, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Bangladesh, who has been waiting for his case to be screened in the territory for nine years, described Ip’s idea as “discriminating” and said it would not halt bogus claimants from entering the city.
“Some asylum seekers have broken the law but that doesn’t mean we are all criminals,” he said.
Hong Kong has a backlog of 11,160 applications on asylum and torture grounds that need to be screened. It was understood that more than half of the claimants were illegal immigrants and a case takes on average 2.3 years to resolve.
The government expected the related expenditure of this year to balloon from HK$644 million to HK$1.4 billion.
Leung reiterated the refugee problem is “extremely troubling for Hong Kong”, and that it “exerted a lot of pressure on the administration”.
He added he would seek to work with Beijing on a diplomatic level to solve the problem.
Ali said it was unfair for the government to label asylum seekers as a problem to society, noting that the limited in-kind assistance currently given to claimants had “forced” many to turn to illegal activities for subsistence.
“If we were allowed to work [while waiting to be screened], I think a lot of crimes could be prevented,” he added.
The Post reported earlier this month the authority planned to target snakeheads with tougher jail sentences to stem the influx of asylum seekers.
The maximum sentence for smuggling people of all nationalities into Hong Kong will be raised more than fourfold – to 14 years under proposed legislation.
Police chief Stephen Lo Wai-chung pledged yesterday to strengthen the intelligence exchange on illegal immigrants with counterparts from other countries through Interpol.
“We hope they could dig out smuggling rings in their own countries, so that we could take joint operations,” Lo said.
“The illegal immigrants could seek asylum after they have entered Hong Kong. We need to cut off the source.”
Additional reporting by Owen Fung
