HONG KONG: Commencing Saturday, illegal immigrants, including those who are asylum seekers on torture claims, will no longer have the right to work in Hong Kong. The Legislative Council (LegCo) yesterday approved a law revision that denies the right to work to illegal immigrants.

Offenders can face a maximum penalty of HK$50,000 in fines and three years in jail.

The amendment is intended to act as a deterrent to the wave of illegal immigrants who had used a loophole in the existing law to take up employment.

"(The amendment) has sent a strong signal to illegal immigrants that even if you are in Hong Kong, you cannot work lawfully here," Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee said at yesterday's LegCo panel meeting.

The loophole arose from a High Court ruling in March that asylum seekers on torture claims can work in the city while awaiting decisions on their applications. The High Court's decision is widely viewed as the impetus for a surge in the number of non-Chinese immigrants that came in the months that followed. They made their way illegally onto the Chinese mainland and were smuggled in droves into Hong Kong.

Today it's estimated there are about 6,000 asylum seekers in Hong Kong. Smuggling syndicates exploited the situation, garnering illegal profits while putting the lives of the illegal immigrants in danger, said Superintendent John Cameron, head of the marine police's small boat division.

He was referring to a case recently where marine police intercepted a sampan, transporting 13 Pakistani illegal immigrants in Hong Kong waters. The men claimed to be Pakistanis seeking asylum in Hong Kong. Nine had passports, three had copies of passports and one had no papers.

The arrest came barely a day after another interception the previous day. The coxswain, arrested along with the illegal immigrants, claimed he was only 16. The fact that the teenager steered the 10m by 1.5m sampan through the dark in high seas, with 14 people and no safety equipment aboard, provided grounds for a charge of endangering people's lives, said Yip Kwong-choi, a senior inspector of marine police.

A Pakistani asylum seeker surnamed Khan told Cable TV yesterday that many of his peers really had no problems in their home country, but that they came to Hong Kong mainly in search of job opportunities.

The marine police have already arrested 1,064 non-Chinese illegal immigrants this year. The figure contrasts with the 964 picked up in all of last year.

China Daily

(HK Edition 11/12/2009 page1)