In August 2019, Sophia’s hip was broken in clashes with Hong Kong police during a protest against China’s encroaching control over the territory.
In December that year, she was beaten again, and by last year, she became convinced that the authorities were going to arrest her.
The 18-year-old took the difficult decision to leave her studies and family, and head for London.
Illustration: Louise Ting
Now Sophia, whose real name has been changed to protect her identity, is sleeping on a couch 10,000km from home, stuck in bureaucratic limbo and unsure of her fate.
As Hong Kong is a former British territory, the UK has taken the lead in responding to China’s imposition of a National Security Law in the territory, by offering a path to British citizenship for eligible residents.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government expects hundreds of thousands to make the leap to safety and perhaps a new life on a British National Overseas (BNO) visa, helping the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the reality is different for some of the most vulnerable.
While affluent Hong Kongers can make the move relatively easily — rich buyers from Hong Kong snapped up almost one in 10 homes in London’s wealthiest areas last year — some of those who took part in the protests are falling through the cracks.
About 200 young Hong Kong democracy advocates had come to the UK as of earlier this month, said Krish Kandiah, the founder of UKHK, an organization that includes a network of hundreds of churches ready to help arrivals from the territory.
“Some of them are not eligible for the BNO visa or they can’t afford it,” Kandiah said. “It would be tragic if the route designed to help Hong Kongers fearful of political persecution is unable to benefit those who need it the most.”
That is the case for Sophia, who says that she had no choice but to travel to the UK.
“In late 2020 I found out I was a target of the [Hong Kong Police Force] National Security Department, and so a few days later, I bought a flight” to the UK, she said in an interview. “I was worried the police would come to my mother’s house and frighten her so she brought my clothes, some money and my anti-depressants to the university dorm. I told her I was fleeing to the UK, but I couldn’t tell my father. He supports the Chinese Communist Party and he would report me to the authorities.”
Sophia arrived in the UK on a six-month tourist visa, has now claimed asylum and is down to her last few hundred pounds.
Despite having post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, she considers herself lucky to have a friend with a couch — although she misses her mother’s cooking.
“I couldn’t remain,” she said.
Violence occurred on both sides during the street protests in Hong Kong that raged for months into last year. A litany of alleged police abuses went viral on social media, including an incident where a traffic police officer rode his motorcycle into a crowd of demonstrators, while protesters resorted to Molotov cocktails, bricks and slingshots.
A Hong Kong police spokesperson said that there were more than 1,400 public order events from June 2019 to early last year, and “many of them ended up in the use of violence by protesters.”
In situations such as the blockage of roads, wanton destruction and violent attacks on people of different political views, “the police are legally bound to take appropriate actions to ensure public safety and public order” according to a strict set of guidelines, the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Police exercise a high level of restraint and professionalism ... will continue to maintain the city’s public safety, and bring all lawbreakers to justice,” they said.
China says that the new law is aimed at punishing acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities and collusion with foreign entities, and that it brings Hong Kong into alignment with mainland China.
The UK says that China broke the terms of an agreement when Britain in 1997 handed the territory back to China, and in July last year, Johnson offered Hong Kongers a route to settlement in the UK.
The longer-term BNO visa was instituted as a bespoke path to citizenship, although other nations, such as Australia and Canada, have also offered safe haven for protesters.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested that the US might do the same.
However, many countries have shut their borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19, whereas the UK has remained open.
Some of the arrivals, such as Sophia, might not be eligible for BNO visas, either because they were born after the 1997 handover, or cannot afford the cost: A visa to stay for five years costs ￡3,370 (US$4,793) and a healthcare surcharge, while applicants must also show that they have enough funds to house and feed themselves for six months.
While the British Home Office Web site says that it takes six months for a decision, Sophia said that her lawyer has advised that there is a backlog due to the pandemic.
She is relying on a charity to fund her legal case.
Some have arrived using Britain’s “leave outside the immigration rules” route, which grants immigration officers discretion to allow entry at the border for up to six months, but are now trapped with no job and no cash, reliant on handouts.
The Home Office, which oversees immigration, has no official estimate of how many people are seeking asylum because they cannot access the BNO route.
“The UK is risking another ‘Windrush’ scandal if it fails to prepare properly for the arrival of such a large number of people,” Kandiah said, referring to an outcry in 2018 when it emerged that elderly black people originally from the Caribbean had been wrongly detained and threatened with deportation because the British government had destroyed paperwork relating to their immigration status.
The public reproach cost the British secretary of state for the Home Department of the time her job.
Even six months after the BNO offer was made by Johnson, in London’s labyrinthine Whitehall, where policy decisions are made, there was confusion over who was responsible for the welfare of the arrivals.
Until recently, no minister was given specific oversight of planning for their integration, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing internal government matters.
Multiple organizations helping the migrants privately expressed frustration with the lack of coordination and help from central and local governments, with departments bouncing queries and responsibility off each other.
In a sign of the shambolic planning, an official in one department told the organizations that British Paymaster General Penny Mordaunt was responsible for the matter, when she was not, the people familiar said.
She was surprised when the organizations wrote to her and had no idea where the information had come from.
Her office declined to comment when asked to respond.
British Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Immigration and Future Borders Kevin Foster said that the government was “proud” of having established the BNO visa route.
“Those not eligible can still apply under existing immigration routes to live, work or study in the UK,” Foster said in a statement.
Pressure group Hong Kong Assistance and Resettlement Community said that young protesters ineligible for the BNO visa are the most likely first wave of migrants bent on coming to the UK.
Sebby, 36, whose real name has been changed to protect his identity, is living in a rented room in north London that he said he cannot pay for.
Having brought money with him last year, he only had enough left to pay his rent for this month.
Sebby worked in the senior management of listed companies in Hong Kong and mainland China, and donated some of his savings to the protests.
In July last year, he packed up his apartment in a hurry and did not tell anyone that he was leaving.
As he had helped organize some rallies in Hong Kong, he fears that persecution awaits if he returns.
He would be eligible for a BNO visa and came to the UK hoping to find a job, but bureaucracy has stood in his way.
Without a British national insurance number, he cannot work, and he cannot get a visa without funds in the bank.
He now worries that he has overstayed his leave outside the rules entry requirements and could face deportation.
“I’m in limbo, it’s devastating,” he said.
However, he does not have any regrets about his chosen path.
“I’m alive. As long as there is still breath, there is hope,” he said.
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