Published: 10:27am, 16 Jan 2025Updated: 10:55am, 16 Jan 2025
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.
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“The United States supports the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of Hong Kong,” Biden, 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.”
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.
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But those who have returned to Hong Kong or mainland China since the first memorandum in 2021 are not eligible for the programme. It only applies to those who have lived in the US since then.
