Hong Kong Rejects Residency for Maid

liver411

       


The government won an appeal Wednesday against an earlier lower-court ruling that would have allowed the city's nearly 300,000 foreign guest workers to apply for permanent residency, which allows the right to remain in the Chinese territory indefinitely.

Although Hong Kong allows other expatriates to secure permanent residency after living in the city for seven years, the city's domestic helpers, mostly Filipina and Indonesian, are excluded from that entitlement.
China Real Time

In 2010, after Evangeline Vallejos's application for permanent residency was denied—she had worked in the city since 1986—she applied for a judicial review of that immigration-department decision, in what has since become a landmark labor case. In September, she was backed by the High Court, which ruled that it was unconstitutional for the government to continue not allowing maids permanent residency.

Ms. Vallejos's lawyer, Mark Daly, said that he wasn't surprised by Wednesday's ruling, and that the case will likely proceed to the Court of Final Appeal.

The case has raised concerns among some Hong Kongers that the city could become overwhelmed if domestic helpers receive permanent residency and then bring their children and otherfamily members to Hong Kong. Ms. Vallejos's lawsuit prompted dueling protests last year, with maids carrying placards reading "I love HK" and Chinese protesters shouting slogans about protecting local employment.

Tensions also have been rising with the mainland as Chinese mothers cross the border to give birth in the city, straining the local health-care system.

In Wednesday's decision, the judges affirmed the government's argument that it has discretion to decide who can settle permanently, noting that such discretion exists even in other countries that also have antidiscrimination protection.

In one section of Wednesday's 66-page ruling, the court declared that numerous exceptions to the city's Immigration Ordinance have existed since 1971, including exclusions of those imprisoned, as well as the issue of Vietnamese refugees between the late 1970s and mid-1990s, who were permitted to remain in Hong Kong as refugees pending resettlement but were denied permanent residency rights.

"What makes us different from other expatriates?" said one female worker at a news conference convened after the decision's release. "We also work hard to support our families."

Mr. Daly, Ms. Vallejos's lawyer, criticized the decision, saying it isn't right for the government to create "second-class citizens." "People in Hong Kong should be proud to have [people like Ms. Vallejos] as full permanent residents," he said.

WSJ Asia