Joe Biden extends special status for Hongkongers in US for two more years


Outgoing US president Joe Biden has extended a programme allowing Hong Kong residents in the country to stay beyond the expiry of their visas by another two years, just weeks before the scheme was due to come to an end.

“The United States supports the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of Hong Kong,” Biden, who is set to leave office on January 20, said early on Thursday Hong Kong time.

“I am, therefore, directing an extension and expansion of the deferral of removal of certain Hong Kong residents, regardless of country of birth, who are present in the United States.”

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The extension of the Deferred Enforced Departure programme now allows certain Hongkongers to continue living and working in the US until February 5, 2027.

First introduced by Biden in August 2021, the programme deferred the enforced departure of certain Hongkongers for 18 months. It was extended by two years in 2023.

But those who have returned to Hong Kong or mainland China are not eligible for the programme, as it only applied to those who have lived in the US since the first memorandum came into effect in 2021.

Hong Kong police issued HK$1 million bounties for the arrest of six more activists in December. Photo: Jelly Tse

Felons, those “subject to extradition”, convicted felons, or those believed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” are also not eligible.

Besides the national security law, which Beijing imposed on the city in June 2020, Biden also pointed to the sentencing of 45 activists to prison for “their peaceful participation in political activities protected under the Basic Law of Hong Kong” in November as a reason the scheme needed to continue.

“The People’s Republic of China ... has continued to significantly erode those rights and freedoms,” Biden said.

“Offering safe haven for Hong Kong residents who have been deprived of their guaranteed freedoms in Hong Kong furthers United States interests in the region ... The United States will continue to stand firm in our support of the people in Hong Kong.”

In December, Hong Kong police issued bounties of HK$1 million (US$128,690) for the arrest of six more activists who allegedly violated the national security law, bringing the total number of such activists on the wanted list to 19.

The passports of seven others who had left the city were revoked in a separate notice. They include Elmer Yuan Gong-yi, Frances Hui Wing-ting and Joey Siu Nam, who have apparently settled in the US.

Former lawmaker Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, who left the city for Canada, is also a partner at the New York-based law firm Elliott Kwok Levine Jaroslaw Neils LLP.

Activist Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang is currently a fellow for China Studies at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, according to the organisation’s website, while former student activist Alex Chow Wing-hong is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Former district councillor Carmen Lau Ka-man and Anna Kwok Fung-yee, executive director of Hong Kong Democracy Council, a US-based non-profit agency set up to expand freedom in China, are also in the US capital.

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