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Fixing a broken asylum system is the real solution to overstayers

Nov 17th, 2016 | Crime, Immigration, Media | Comment

SCMP - Fixing a broken asylum system - 17Nov2016

Is the noose tightening around the neck of refugees?

Sep 1st, 2016 | Advocacy, Crime, Housing, Immigration, Rejection, VF Opinion, Welfare | Comment

Vision First attended court yesterday to witness two refugee members being prosecuted for allegedly working unlawfully. The prosecutor revealed that the employer will testify as a witness. Bail was denied.

Let’s stop and think. Wouldn’t it normally be the case that prosecutors seek the assistance of the unlawfully employed persons to indict unscrupulous employers, rather than the other way around? Generally speaking, how can refugees conscientiously abide by the law when the material assistance they received fails to meet their most basic needs, rent in particular?

Aside from promoting a regrettable form of xenophobia and widespread misinformation, it appears that the Government is accomplishing little more than slamming the door shut for refugees who mistakenly hoped for a more favorable outcome when seeking refuge in Hong Kong.

A plethora of problems germinates in the the well-known failures of the Unified Screening Mechanism to then spread through various branches of government tasked with dealing with refugees and finally reach deep down in the underground economy where a growing number of destitute asylum seekers are forced to find informal relief.

First, one might consider the statistics published by the Immigration Department informing that, between 2009 and 2016, just 55 of 9214 asylum claims were substantiated. This equates to a success rate of 0.6% for seeking asylum in Hong Kong compared to 30-50% in European countries, for example. Despite authorities being quoted as saying that this rate is indicative of abuse, one might question the credibility of the process that rejects 166 for every 1 case accepted.

That being said, few people realize that successful claimants do not earn the right of abode, will not get ID cards, are prohibited from working under penalty of 36 month prison (maximum sentence) and, together with the other 11,169 asylum seekers, must rely on a monthly assistance of 1200$ in food coupons, 1500$ in rent assistance and about 500$ for utilities and transport.

Second, packaged as ‘humanitarian assistance’ the above assistance was designed to remove the sting of destitution in one of the most expensive cities in the world. That is of little consolation for eleven thousand men, women and children who are expected to cope gratefully, or face hefty prison sentences for ‘breaking the law’ by earning necessary cash on the side.

Such ‘humanitarian assistance’ is in fact more a curse than a blessing. It pulls a seemingly compassionate mask over a draconian policy designed to quash hope in recipients. Overworked magistrates swiftly conclude that as welfare is provided, refugees who work illegally deserve to be incarcerated 15 to 22 months according to plea. Thus sentencing is reduced to little more than ticking the boxes with no consideration of real life circumstances.

Third, the rental crisis is spiraling towards an abyss. On the one hand, contrary to general trends, prices for subdivided rooms have increased to at least 3000$, and availability is very scarce. On the other hand, the SWD contractor ISS-HK is reported by refugees to have started to demand they produce letters from resident sponsors endorsing rent surpluses before new tenancy agreements are accepted for the disbursement of the meagre rent assistance. This could prove challenging.

While some refugees may resourcefully raise funds, these are largely informal arrangements with friends, partners, donors and churches/NGOs that might not translate into sponsorship agreements. “People are going to lose their rooms and become homeless” commented a refugee who visited Vision First for advice.

Fourth, an increasing number of refugees report that the Immigration Department demands detailed written significations. On the one side, the time it takes to lodge new claims is increasing, thus preventing destitute claimants from obtaining assistance. On the other, those whose application fails on signification are likely to abscond and are thus prevented from obtaining assistance. It isn’t hard to guess that these refugees will find support in the underground economy where also the lure of criminal activity is strong.

Fifth, applications for “BOR 2 Claims” appear to be denied to a greater extent than before (Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Art. 2). Until recently they were the last resort for rejected USM claimants fearful of imminent removal. Since it seems the government has yet to formulate a policy to deal with these claims, rejecting such applications might be a way contain a problematic surge. However, encouraging refugees to go underground creates graver problems. The maxim “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” ought to be considered.

Sixth, residents employ refugees due to a severe shortage of unskilled labour. For undocumented workers, monthly salaries in restaurants are up to 8000$ for washing dishes and 15,000$ for cooking. A team can be paid as much as 10,000$ to unload heavy containers, irrespective of time; while the pay is about 600$ a day for demolition work in flats and for night shifts repairing roads for government contractors. Refugees are indeed sought after, and encouraged to introduce friends, because local workers turn their nose on strenuous work, or expect higher payment. In this respect, the government ought to consider a “migrant labour scheme” which refugees could join with an agreement to leave Hong Kong afterwards.

Seventh, a blatant inconsistency in criminal sentencing makes it attractive for desperate refugees to engage in criminal activity such as theft, soliciting or drug trafficking, rather than perform licit work as detailed above. For example, it has come to our attention that refugees might be sentenced to 8 months in prison for trafficking, 4 months for soliciting and a few weeks for shoplifting. Irrespective of moral concerns and social deviancy, the obvious imprisonment advantage is a factor.

These issues combine to overwhelm refugees who are first failed by the government departments tasked to protect and assist them, and then exploited by landlords and employers who unashamedly prey on their need for cash. And when refugees are caught red handed, they are the ones to bear the consequences and the full weight of the law. Indeed, as a perceptive refugee succinctly put it, “Hong Kong is a closed club”, and membership is protected.

It comes as no surprise that certain media outlets foment the flames of propaganda reporting every transgression by refugees who find the noose tightening around their neck in an increasingly toxic and unsustainable environment.

Is the noose tightening around the neck of refugees 

Hong Kong Government abuses Criminal Court Processes with Malicious Prosecution of Vulnerable Refugees

Jul 18th, 2016 | Advocacy, Crime, Housing, VF Opinion, Welfare | Comment

Over the past week the local media reported that 11 Bangladeshi refugees were arrested and charged by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for allegedly defrauding the International Social Service (ISSHK) of hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent assistance over several years. Vision First cannot but question this approach in view of the following.

The ISSHK, Fixers and Landlords Consortium

From March 2013 Vision First systematically exposed hazardous slums in which hundreds of vulnerable asylum seekers were knowingly and intentionally settled by ISSHK with government funds credited as rent assistance, not into the bank accounts of the asylum seekers (they do not have any), but into the accounts of unscrupulous fixers and purported landlords who exploited refugee tenants.

Gradually a disturbing picture emerged of at least 69 (sixty-nine) ghettos established by Hong Kong Chinese landlords in remote rural farmland and some located in dilapidated animal farms. These were distant from urban areas and hard to locate without particular knowledge.

Director and Patron of ISSHK: Tam Yiu-chung (DAB) and Regina Leung (wife of C.E. C.Y. Leung)

Among these ghettos, 64 (sixty-four) slums were situated in the geographical constituency of “New Territories West” represented by lawmaker and former head of the DAB party Tam Yiu-chung, who was also appointed a director of the board of ISSHK in 1999, a position he held until 2015. The remaining 5 (five) slums were allegedly supported by a fixer named Jane Chan, who operated an agency for foreign domestic helpers in Yuen Long, also within Tam Yiu Chung’s DAB controlled New Territories West.

A fraudulent web of deception began to emerge. Reaching across distant rural lands, this complex scheme blatantly exploited destitute and homeless refugees who desperately sought urgent shelter in their darkest days of asylum seeking in Hong Kong.

It appeared after attentive investigation that these refugees were exploited for financial gain by fixers who distributed and filled in ISSHK paperwork, by alleged landlords who provided false and/or misleading information, and by genuine landlords who rented out animal farms and agricultural land for residential use to unsuspecting and destitute refugees. Finally, ISSHK case-workers inspected and approved these unauthorized structures to intentionally settle the aforesaid homeless refugees for reasons that must be explained.

It is highlighted that Mrs. Regina Leung, the wife of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Mr. C.Y. Leung, has at all material times and at present day been the Patron of ISSHK, and a participant with the ISSHK board of directors. To this effect, Vision First reported about a protest by the Refugee Union outside Government House in March 2014 which failed to draw the sympathy and support of Mrs. Regina Leung. The Vision First blog of 14 March 2014 is available here.

What emerges is the picture and reality of an Orwellian “Animal Farm” environment controlled by and led by the consortium of ISSHK, real estate fixers and true/fake landlords.

The “Animal Farm” for Refugees

Vision First campaigned against the “Refugee Slums of Hong Kong” primarily because they were illegal and hazardous structures that endangered the lives of vulnerable refugees who received insufficient rent assistance to secure proper accommodation. In fact, a Sri Lankan refugee died in a slum blaze in February 2015 and exploding gas cylinders razed another slum a month later. Considerable danger from fire, explosion, flooding, collapse, electrocution and disease was always palpable upon our inspections.

Few visitors to the slums were in any doubt that the settling of homeless refugees in such dangerous huts was an egregious act by whoever was responsible for a scheme that started in 2006 and ended in 2016 when the Lands Department clamped down these illegal practices. Presumably there were also policy changes at ISSHK that quietly discontinued the questionable arrangements that generated the slums in the first place and sustained them for a decade beyond the public eye.

In July 2016, after three years of investigation, the Hong Kong Government decided to arrest and charge 11 (eleven) destitute Bangladeshi refugees who the ICAC allege of masterminding this impressive and widespread criminal enterprise that established and supported several slums in the fields of Ping Che, Fanling between 2010 and 2016.

Vision First has learnt that none of the fixers or purported landlords involved have been taken to court, while several staff of ISSHK are collaborating as prosecution witnesses. Not one person from ISSHK has yet to be prosecuted. Only the weakest and most vulnerable asylum seekers are being targeted and prosecuted by law enforcement that seems determined to fry some small fish.

It begs the question – Are these politically motivated prosecutions? The answer may well be found in the pages of George Orwell’s book – Some people are more equal than others“.

The Politically Motivated Charges

The 11 (eleven) defendants were charged with fraud under the Theft Ordinance. They are accused of fraudulently misrepresenting residential addresses in Tenancy Agreements and housing forms allegedly to defraud ISSHK of rental assistance to live in some of the most disgusting, degrading and dangerous slums to house Hong Kong refugees in the past two decades.

All the defendants are illiterate, except for Bengali. They are generally unfamiliar with ISSHK housing procedures and the intricacy of relevant logistical and legal matters. A host of troubling questions emerge about those persons in control of the 69 (sixty-nine) slums and their complex documentary and financial transactions with ISSHK. The asylum seekers were ultimately subjected to living in inhumane, humiliating and degrading premises with no financial gain for many years. Why?

It is bizarre that the ICAC alleges that illiterate, destitute, and marginalized refugees allegedly masterminded a complex, pervasive fraud that credited tens of millions of tax dollars into the accounts of fixers, middlemen and purported landlords based on ISSHK having knowingly and intentionally sanctioning animal sheds for human habitation hidden far away from the public eye.

ISSHK – A Government Agent of the Social Welfare Department

It is highlighted that ISSHK is a Hong Kong Government contractor under the Social Welfare Department (SWD). In its capacity to provide services to non-refoulement claimants, ISSHK does not act in a role of an NGO that receives donations from the public. It is known that ISSHK does provide services as an NGO to other persons, but not to asylum seekers and refugees under its contract with SWD since 2006.

Political Persecution of the “Bengali Eleven” Defendants

Assisted by Vision First on a humanitarian basis and represented pro bono by Barrister Mr. Robert Tibbo (who acted for American whistleblower Mr Edward Snowden in Hong Kong) the 11 (eleven) defendants, or the “Bengali Eleven”, have pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges brought against them by the ICAC. They will fight robustly against this overt political persecution and will identify the true offenders.  

 

Several the “Bengali Eleven” arrested for fraud lived for years in the “Slum Under The Tree”, photographed above during a visit by Vision First in May 2013.

Five asylum-claimants deny HK$140,000 aid fraud

Jul 15th, 2016 | Crime, Housing, Legal, Welfare | Comment

The Standard - Five asylum-claimants deny HK$140,000 aid fraud

Five more asylum seekers and torture claimants in court for $170,000 fraud over allowances

Jul 15th, 2016 | Crime, Government, Housing, Legal, Welfare | Comment

ICAC - Five more asylum seekers and torture claimants in court for $170,000 fraud over allowances

南亞聲請者涉騙租津被起訴

Jul 14th, 2016 | Crime, Housing, Media, Welfare | Comment

Sing Tao - ICAC arrests 6 refugees for fraud - 14Jul2016

Hong Kong asylum seekers deny defrauding NGO

Jul 14th, 2016 | Crime, Housing, Legal, Welfare | Comment

SCMP - Hong Kong asylum seekers deny defrauding NGO

Six asylum seekers and torture claimants in court for $190,000 fraud over allowances

Jul 13th, 2016 | Crime, Government, Housing, Legal, Welfare | Comment

ICAC - Six asylum seekers and torture claimants in court for $190,000 fraud over allowances

Hong Kong’s Kwok brothers caught up in Australian detention centre scandal

Apr 6th, 2016 | Crime, Detention, Immigration | Comment

SCMP - Hong Kong’s Kwok brothers caught up in Australian detention centre scandal

UN Committee Against Torture urges gov’t to ‘duly prosecute’ police who used excessive force during Occupy

Dec 12th, 2015 | Crime, Media, Police | Comment

HKFP - UN Committee Against Torture urges gov’t to ‘duly prosecute’ police

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