Facts and Statistics

	2020	2021
Forged travel documents detected	98	56
Mainland illegal immigrants apprehended and repatriated	60	919
Illegal workers prosecuted (excluding sex workers)	615	815
Employers of illegal workers prosecuted	164	185
No. of prosecution instituted	4 401	3 135

Torture/Non-refoulement Claim Cases
(as at End of March 2022)

^[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non-refoulement claims on applicable grounds (other than torture) (in which 2 962 cases were lodged by rejected or withdrawn torture claimants), making a total of 6 699 non-refoulement claims pending determination on commencement of the USM.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 2022, determinations have been made in 25 692 torture/non-refoulement claims, among which 283 were substantiated. A breakdown by nationality of the substantiated claimants is as follows:

Nationality	Number of claimants
Yemeni	43
Pakistani	33
Rwandan	25
Somali	20
Sri Lankan	18
Egyptian	16
Bangladeshi	15
Congolese (Democratic Republic of)	14
Cameroonian	12
Burundian	10
Indonesian	10
Afghanistani	8
Jordanian	8
Nepalese	7
Ethiopian	6
Central African Republic	5
Iranian	4
Ugandan	4
Zimbabwean	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	283

As at 31 March 2022, there were 358 outstanding non-refoulement claims and breakdown on the profiling of the claimants is as follows:

Sex	Number of claimants
Male	125
Female	233
Total	358

 

Age	Number of claimants
Under 18	42
18 to 30	93
31 to 40	138
Above 40	85
Total	358

 

Nationality	Number of claimants
Indonesian	123
Vietnamese	79
Filipino	40
Bangladeshi	22
Pakistani	21
Indian	18
Thai	17
Nigerian	6
Afghanistani	4
Others	28
Total	358

 

Status in Hong Kong	Percentage
Overstayers	57%
Illegal Immigrants	31%
Others (Including persons refused entry and persons born in Hong Kong with the right of abode in Hong Kong not established)	12%