10. Asylum Seeker Materiality and Identity-Building: Shapers of Socio-legal Incarceration

‘Asylum seeker’ and ‘refugee’ are terms used here interchangeably with preference to the former for asylum is extremely hard to obtain in Hong Kong. Further, the label refugee is traditionally associated with migration from China and Vietnam in the 1950s through to the 1990s that was believed to be largely economically motivated. In the contemporary discourse, the international usage of the label refugee can be said to be equivalent to the use of ‘genuine asylum seeker’ in Hong Kong.

In 2004, the Hong Kong Government introduced a screening mechanism to assess non-refoulement claims of people demanding protection from torture, cruel or other inhuman treatment, following a decision to that effect of the Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s highest court (Loper 2010). This mechanism has since been enhanced and expanded in scope. However, the government maintains that asylum seekers are to be considered illegal immigrants and overstayers (LegCo 2015). In fact, immigration policies can require people seeking protection to pursue their claim only after they have either entered Hong Kong illegally or their permitted period of stay has expired (CH v Director of Immigration, CACV59/2010). Consequently, asylum seekers are illegal migrants or overstayers against whom is generally handed down a removal order, which can warrant the asylum seeker detention if his or her removal is foreseeable in the short term. Most asylum seekers are detained only for the purpose of verification of their identity, after which they are released into society pending determination of their asylum claim.

For the government assistance they receive is to be distributed in a form that should avoid creating a ‘magnet effect which may have serious implications on the sustainability of the assistance programme and … immigration control’ (LegCo 2015, p. 8).

Asylum seekers in slums generally retain some privacy as rooms are cheaper than in urban settings, and thus they can live alone while sharing the compound common areas only.