Facts and Statistics

	2019	2020
Forged travel documents detected	572	98
Mainland illegal immigrants apprehended and repatriated	336	60
Illegal workers prosecuted (excluding sex workers)	1 157	615
Employers of illegal workers prosecuted	246	164
No. of prosecution instituted	5 408	4 401

Torture/Non-refoulement Claim Cases
(as at End of March 2021)

^[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non-refoulement claims on applicable grounds (other than torture) (in which 2 962 cases were lodged by rejected or withdrawn torture claimants), making a total of 6 699 non-refoulement claims pending determination on commencement of the USM.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] 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. As at the end of March 2021, apart from 960 claims pending completion of screening by ImmD, there were over 600 cases of which the screening procedure had yet to commence due to the pandemic.

Between the commencement of the enhanced administrative mechanism (late 2009) and March 2021, determinations have been made in 23 299 torture/non-refoulement claims, among which 249 were substantiated. A breakdown by nationality of the substantiated claimants is as follows:

Nationality	Number of claimants
Yemeni	33
Pakistani	28
Rwandan	21
Somali	19
Sri Lankan	18
Egyptian	16
Bangladeshi	14
Congolese (Democratic Republic of)	13
Cameroonian	12
Burundian	9
Indonesian	9
Jordanian	8
Afghanistani	7
Nepalese	7
Ethiopian	6
Iranian	4
Central African Republic	3
Ugandan	3
Gambian	2
Indian	2
Nigerian	2
Sudanese	2
Togolese	2
Venezuelan	2
Eritrean	1
Filipino	1
Guinean	1
Nigerien	1
Syrian	1
Thai	1
Vietnamese	1
Total	249

As at 31 March 2021, there were 960 outstanding non-refoulement claims and breakdown on the profiling of the claimants is as follows:

Sex	Number of claimants
Male	486
Female	474
Total	960

 

Age	Number of claimants
Under 18	57
18 to 30	324
31 to 40	382
Above 40	197
Total	960

 

Nationality	Number of claimants
Vietnamese	262
Indonesian	247
Pakistani	106
Filipino	93
Bangladeshi	91
Indian	84
Thai	27
Sri Lankan	9
Nepalese	6
Others	35
Total	960

 

Status in Hong Kong	Percentage
Overstayers	48%
Illegal Immigrants	46%
Others (Including persons refused entry and persons born in Hong Kong with the right of abode in Hong Kong not established)	6%