Facts and Statistics

	2021	2022
Forged travel documents detected	56	109
Mainland illegal immigrants apprehended and repatriated	919	787
Illegal workers prosecuted (excluding sex workers)	815	539
Employers of illegal workers prosecuted	185	138
No. of prosecution instituted	3 135	2 930

Torture/Non-refoulement Claim Cases
(as at End of March 2023)

^[1] The Court of First Instance of the High Court (CFI) held in December 2008 that the Administration should provide legal assistance to a torture claimant during the screening process and provide suitable training for the decision makers. The Immigration Department (ImmD) then suspended all screening works.

^[2] The Legislative Council passed the Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance 2009 in November 2009, making it an offence for illegal immigrants to take any employment or establish or join in any business. The ImmD implemented the enhanced administrative mechanism in December 2009.

^[3] This includes 93 reviewed cases.

^[4] On commencement of the Unified Screening Mechanism (USM) on 3 March 2014, there were 2 501 outstanding torture claims. Separately, 4 198 persons have lodged non-refoulement claims on applicable grounds (other than torture) (in which 2 962 cases were lodged by rejected or withdrawn torture claimants), making a total of 6 699 non-refoulement claims pending determination on commencement of the USM.

^[5] From 2020 to early 2021, due to the special work arrangements during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, only limited publicly-funded legal assistance could be provided to claimants, which delayed the commencement of the screening procedure of some claims.

Between the commencement of the enhanced administrative mechanism (late 2009) and March 2023, determinations have been made in 27 225 torture/non-refoulement claims, among which 302 were substantiated. A breakdown by nationality of the substantiated claimants is as follows:

Nationality	Number of claimants
Yemeni	43
Pakistani	39
Rwandan	25
Somali	21
Sri Lankan	18
Bangladeshi	17
Egyptian	17
Congolese (Democratic Republic of)	15
Burundian	12
Cameroonian	12
Indonesian	11
Zimbabwean	9
Afghan	8
Jordanian	8
Nepalese	7
Ethiopian	6
Central African	5
Iranian	4
Ugandan	4
Gambian	2
Indian	2
Nigerian	2
Sudanese	2
Togolese	2
Venezuelan	2
Colombian	1
Eritrean	1
Filipino	1
Guinean	1
Kenyan	1
Nigerien	1
Syrian	1
Thai	1
Vietnamese	1
Total	302

As at 31 March 2023, there were 204 outstanding non-refoulement claims and breakdown on the profiling of the claimants is as follows:

Sex	Number of claimants
Male	62
Female	142
Total	204

 

Age	Number of claimants
Under 18	30
18 to 30	54
31 to 40	64
Above 40	56
Total	204

 

Nationality	Number of claimants
Indonesian	96
Filipino	40
Indian	21
Thai	11
Bangladeshi	10
Vietnamese	6
Tanzanian	3
Moroccan	2
Nepalese	2
Others	13
Total	204

 

Status in Hong Kong	Percentage
Overstayers	80%
Illegal Immigrants	5%
Others (Including persons refused entry and persons born in Hong Kong with the right of abode in Hong Kong not established)	15%