Hong Kong BNO Migrants Panel Survey

为应对政治权利受到侵蚀，特别是香港实施国家安全法，内政部于2020年10月宣布，所有拥有英国国民海外（BNO）身份的香港居民及其近亲均可申请签证前往英国。香港750万居民中有多达540万人可能符合BNO计划的资格。这使他们有权在英国工作，并提供了一条获得正式英国公民身份的途径。这标志着英国移民政策的重大转变。以前，BNO（尽管名称）的权利非常有限。在天安门事件后，5万名香港居民及其家人在政治反对的背景下获得了英国居留权。相比之下，这个范围更广的计划迄今为止基本上没有争议。该计划的实施存在巨大的不确定性。内政部估计，第一年可能有123，000至153，700人来到英国，头五年可能有258，000至322，400人。它还给出了一个可信的上限估计为100万。迄今所掌握的有限数据表明，资金流动量很大。2021年1月31日至2021年12月31日期间，共有103，990份BNO签证申请。通过BNO计划，我们正在见证有史以来最大的移民从单一来源国流入英国。在英国出生的香港居民人数可能在几年内增加三倍甚至四倍。20世纪50年代和60年代的温德鲁什一代，60年代和70年代的东非亚洲人，以及21世纪头10年中期以来的中欧和东欧移民，都对英国的社会结构产生了持久的变化。我们相信BNO移民的到来也将在未来几十年内为英国带来深刻的社会，经济，甚至政治变化。BNO在英国的社会和经济状况如何？他们的需求和经验是什么？他们与其他移民/少数族裔群体的成员相比如何？有多少英国国民（海外）会在数年后返回香港？在这一点上，我们没有系统的，可靠的，有代表性的数据，使我们能够回答这些问题的信心。为填补这差距，我们会设计及进行一项有关在英国的香港英国国民（海外）移民的调查。在内政部的合作下，我们将能够抽取2,000名BNO移民的代表性样本。我们将在三年内采访他们三次。这项调查将为我们提供有关BNO抵达时的信息。它还将告诉我们他们在该国定居时不断变化的结果和轨迹。据我们所知，这将是第一个系统的，纵向的，社会科学研究，跟踪一个主要的移民群体（几乎）从他们到达英国的时间。我们将分析BNO融入英国经济和社会的情况，研究内容涵盖劳动力市场结果，移民过程和意图，歧视，社交网络和社会凝聚力等主题。我们的数据将成为移民研究领域其他学者和政策分析人员的丰富资源。该项目将加深我们对BNO和移民融合进程的理解。

In response to the erosion of political rights and, in particular, the imposition of a National Security Law in Hong Kong, the Home Office announced in October 2020 that all Hong Kong residents with British National Overseas (BNO) status and their close family members could apply for visas to move to the UK. Up to 5.4 million of Hong Hong's 7.5 million residents are potentially eligible under the BNO scheme. This gives them the right to work in the UK and provides a path to full British citizenship. This announcement represents a radical shift in UK immigration policy. Previously, BNOs (despite the name) had very limited rights. In the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, 50,000 Hong Kong residents and their family members were given the right of abode in the UK, against the background of substantial political opposition. By contrast, this much more wide-ranging scheme has so far been largely uncontroversial. There is huge uncertainty about the take-up of the scheme. The Home Office estimates that between 123,000 and 153,700 people might come to the UK in the first year, and between 258,000 and 322,400 people over the first five years. It also gives a plausible upper-bound estimate of one million. The limited data that is available so far suggests that flows have been significant. There were 103,990 BNO visa applications between 31 January 2021 and 31 December 2021. With the BNO scheme, we are witnessing one of the largest migrant inflows to the UK from a single source country ever recorded. The number of Hong Kong-born residents in the UK could triple or even quadruple within a few years. The Windrush generation of the 1950s and 1960s, the East African Asians of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Central and Eastern European migrants from the mid-2000s have all made lasting changes to the social fabrics of the UK. We believe the arrival of the BNO migrants will also bring profound social, economic, and perhaps political changes in Britain in the decades to come. How will the BNOs fare, socially and economically, in the UK? What are their needs and experience? How do they compare with members of other migrant/minority ethnic groups? How many of the BNOs will return to Hong Kong after a few years? At this point we do not have systematic, reliable, and representative data that will allow us answer these questions with confidence. To fill in the gap, we will design and implement a survey of the Hong Kong BNO migrants in the UK. With the cooperation of the Home Office, we will be able to draw a representative sample of 2,000 BNO migrants. We will interview them three times over three years. This survey will give us information about the BNOs as they arrive. It will also tell us their evolving outcomes and trajectories as they settle in the country. To our knowledge, this will be the first systematic, longitudinal, social science study that tracks a major migrant group (almost) from the time of their arrival in the UK. We will analyse the BNOs' integration into the UK economy and society, with research strands covering topics such as labour market outcomes, migration processes and intentions, discrimination, social networks, and social cohesion. Our data will become a rich resource for other scholars and policy analysts in the field of migration research. This project will deepen our understanding of the BNOs and of the process of migrant integration in general.