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  • Dec 27, 2014
  • Updated: 2:47am
NewsHong Kong

First mainland mother to sneak in by plane is jailed

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 19 September, 2012, 12:00am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 19 September, 2012, 1:59pm

The first pregnant mainland woman arrested for sneaking into the city by plane and giving birth at the last minute was jailed yesterday.

The Immigration Department said it would improve communications with airlines after Ye Qianfeng, 26, was sentenced at Sha Tin Court to eight months in prison for giving a false statement and presenting false documents.

She gave birth to a boy in a Hong Kong hospital while she was under investigation.

It means her son, whose father is also a mainlander, is legally entitled to right of abode.

Fung Tai-kwong, assistant principal immigration officer, said there was no indication that more women were taking planes to the city to give birth.

He said: "We believe there is a chance the airline was deceived by her falsified documents. We will have more communications with airlines and hope they will pay more attention."

Ye arrived at Hong Kong international airport from Guangzhou on August 29, but was intercepted. She told immigration officers she was 28 weeks pregnant and presented a mainland hospital document as proof.

But officers found from the records that she was denied entry once in June at Lo Wu border checkpoint. At that time, she told officers her expected delivery date was September 5. She gave birth to her son on September 8. During the investigation she admitted she was 38 weeks pregnant and had bought the falsified document from an unknown woman for 100 yuan (HK$122).

It is understood Ye has not yet applied for a birth certificate.

Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung said this month that the government had invited a Queen's Counsel to advise on how to reverse a law that automatically grants right of abode to all babies born to mainland parents in the city.

In the first eight months of this year, entry was denied to about 3,000 mainland women trying to sneak into the city to give birth, up from about 2,000 in the whole of last year. Eleven were rejected at the airport.


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This article is now closed to comments

well done/these are all angels so all the hk departments dont dare to check these angels/any mistake from them no body in hk can see/if this person is from south east asia then there is list rules will come out.racist SAR
@likingming After 2047 it's likely that HK will have its charter extended another 50 years, albeit with some unilateral tweaks by Beijing. Why change something that isn't broken? The legal system in HK works very well and everyone knows it. It's far more pragmatic to just leave things the way they are. In the meantime though, there will be further economic integration with the mainland.
They will change it by 2047 if the majority of HK still think they are British colonial subjects and do not embrace their Nationality which is Chinese and also if they always fight against everything no matter what comes from the Mainland. Extension of the 1 country 2 systems? It seems this will come to an end if the HKners still behave like children given a tool (political rights) in hand which they are not able to use thoroughly. They have already more than they ever had have and more than any other Chinese have in the Mainland and playing around like doofs with it (yelling and throwing bananas in the Ledco, disturbing discussions, unconstructive protests, violent demonstrations, paranoia). Imagine giving them the whole stuff. They would probably voting the British Colony back to be colonial subjects without any political rights, just because they do not want to be labelled as Chinese.
We have 50 years of unchange promised by Peking. Now 15 yrs lapsed. That means all mainlanders will automatically have right of abode 35 yrs later. That 35 yrs period may even be shortened by a decade taken into account that everything, laws & regulations etc, will have to be compromised beforehand. Even a boy born today in the mainland can come and live here when he grows up. But we have no worry that 1.3b chinese will come as long as other major mainlander cities, Shanghai, Canton, Peking, Hangzhou, keep their present attractiveness and are much better in most aspects when compared to Hong Kong.
Reversing right of abode laws for people born here is a slippery slope. Will we end up with stateless people as refugees? If people born here do not get right of abode, what nation will take them in? Will this only apply to children of mainland parents? What about other nationalities living here legally? With HK's indigenous birth rate below replacement levels, a better policy would be to let in a fixed number of pregnant women and let them and their offspring stay. HK allows in, what, 150 people each day from China no questions asked? Let these 150 be expectant parents so HK's population can be maintained.


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