A large number of people, especially from Bangladesh and Pakistan, are being smuggled into Hong Kong through Shenzhen, China, reported the Sunday Morning Post.
The report claimed that hundreds of illegal immigrants, mostly from Bangladesh or Pakistan, entered Hong Kong by boat in the past years.
Sunday Morning Post
According to the report, migrants fly into cities across mainland China and head to Shenzhen, where they pay middlemen HK$10,000 to HK$12,000 to take them to Hong Kong by high-speed sampan.
The Post revealed a 50% year-on-year rise in the number of non-ethnic-Chinese illegal immigrants arrested in Hong Kong.
The official police figures showed that the number rose from 291 in the first half of the last year to 447 in the same period this year.
"This summer has seen a spike. It has been particularly busy," said a police source, adding that the authorities were "very confident" they were catching all migrants after they landed on the west and south coasts of Lantau during the night.
“The boats usually carrying 10 to 12 people lands near Tai O or Fan Lau, which allows them to stay in mainland waters for most of the journey.”
Wishing anonymity, a Pakistani asylum seeker said he had used lodgings in Shenzhen three times in the last decade to enter Hong Kong.
The police public relations bureau said they noticed an increase in illegal immigration in the first half of this year.
Kamal, a Bangladeshi living in Hong Kong, said the use of Shenzhen as a staging post for illegal entry to Hong Kong had grown in popularity in the last decade as visa restrictions for South Asians had been tightened. Visa-free access for Bangladeshi nationals was withdrawn in 2006.
"Please stop them coming. It's ridiculous and horrible," said Kamal, who has seen a number of compatriots trapped in seemingly endless cycles of incarceration after their arrival in Hong Kong.
The surge in migrants from South Asia is just the latest development in Hong Kong's long history of illegal immigration.
After the end of the civil war on the mainland in 1949, an estimated one million people poured across the border, often using boats or even swimming. Although illegal, many were allowed to stay to help ease labour shortages.
Hong Kong again became a prime destination after the Vietnam war, with nearly 200,000 "boat-people" entering the city between 1975 and 2000. About two-thirds were eventually resettled in other countries, while the final third were repatriated.