Immigration

H

hikat

New member
Both my husband & I are Hong Kong permanent residents. I have couples of questions. Can anyone help me?

1) If our baby is born outside HK, in order to be a HK permanent resident, does she need to live in HK for 7 years?

2) Can she get a HK Birth Certification?

3) Can she apply for a HK Passport?

4) Can she apply for a 回鄉證 if I wanna bring her to China?
 
it's always best to go straight to the source with important questions like these.
immig is always very helpful.

good luck!
 
kat kat:

My husband and I are both permanent residents, though non-Chinese. Our son wasn't born in HK.

1) Yes, the child has to stay with you in HK for 7 years before being eligible to apply for the permanent residency status.

2) The child cannot get a HK birth certificate.

3) As we're non-Chinese, our boy (nor we) cannot apply for a HK SAR passport. If the parents are Chinese, I think you can.

I don't know what the question no. 4 is. Sorry, that's all I could help.
 
Ironically, I have had immigration problems of my own but opposite of yours!

My husband and I are both of chinese descent but neither of us hold HK passports. My daughter who was born this year holds an American passport. We were refused a visa to China earlier this year as she was considered a "Chinese citizen". So we had to apply for a 'hui xiang jing' for both her and myself when we had no intention of doing so in order for her to 'return to China'. How ironic is that? I thought if either my husband or I were not ethnically chinese, we would not have had this problem and all this extra stress!

So you can only apply for a "hui xiang jing' for your child if either you or your husband holds one. but best to check with the China immigration/China Travel Service office. We went to the one on Connaught Road.
 
Both of us are holding the "3-star" HK ID, HK SAR passport and hui xiang zheng. In order to get the HK passport and hui xian zheng for our baby, we just not sure if our baby need to be born in HK. I did surf the HK Immigration Department website, as well as the China immigration/China Travel Service website, however, I can't get the answer! The explaination is so vague. Should I call them or visit their offices in person? There's problem for me if I need to visit them in person coz I'm not in HK now. As I'm experiencing serious pregnancy symptoms, these make me even cannot fly back to HK... :(
 
Kat Kat

I think you have to be born in HK to be able to apply for a HK passport and if your child is born outside HK, he/she will not hold a "3-star" HK ID card. Though I believe the card will become a "3-star" after the child has been in HK for 7 years.

I'm not sure what the chinese chararcters are on no.4 is, but I presume you are talking about the permanent card that you can use to go to China without getting a visa. The answer I believe is No. You will need to buy a day pass everytime you want to take your child to China.

I think you will get a proper and more accurate answer if you call immigration as they are usually very helpful.
 
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kat,

My husband is an HK citizen while i'm on sponsorship from him and therefore only permanent resident.

1. Our baby born in Canada can get a dependent visa with my husband as a sponsor (no stars) and the only official documentation to support it is a VISA applied inside her Canadian passport.

2. Since the child was not born in HK, she doesn't qualify for an HK birth certificate. She already has a Canadian one.

3. She can't even get an HKID. The children's HKID is applicable to children 11 years or older. Therefore she can't get an HK passport.

4. She can't get a 回鄉證 either. If she wants to go to China, she'll need to apply for a Visa that is attached to her passport.

I hope this helps. The process of applying for her permanent residence was pretty easy and quick. It took about 3 weeks for the application to process.
 
My husband is Chinese and was born in Hong Kong. He holds a BNO and an HKSAR passport and has full right of abode in Hong Kong.

I?m English and hold a British passport and now, after living in HK for over seven years, hold a permanent HKID card.

My third child was born in England (it was during the summer holidays ? I didn?t think pregnancy and the summer heat went together and so escaped). Thus he has a British birth certificate and we got him a British passport at age 15 days so that he could travel to Hong Kong at 18 days.

He has a British passport, an HKSAR passport with an ID card that had no photo on it. And he also has a "hui xiang jing'. Applying the HKSAR passport was easy because everyone spoke English and the Hong Kong officials just follow the rules.

I found applying for the ?hui xiang jing?, however, very troublesome. Each person I spoke to told me a different story. In the end my husband took over and spoke Chinese to them. We found it was much better if I didn?t show my English face in the building and then no questions were asked about dual nationality.

It seems that China has policies about Chinese citizens who then choose to become nationals of other places, in that they don?t allow dual nationality. But I can?t be sure of this because no one would give me straight answers. And they don?t seem to have thought about children who get the dual nationalities by birth right.

My son has only one star on his HKID card at the moment and will get three when he is eighteen. These stars show that he is descended from Chinese. His ID card starts with the letter P, which I believe indicates that he was born overseas. These laws about nationality seem quite racist to me.

When I travel to China I use a three year multi entry visa. I find it is much easier and cheaper than applying for one at each visit.

The only time I travelled to China with my children and without my husband I took them on their British passports and applied for visas. When my husband travels with us he takes them through the Chinese side and I go through the "aliens" side and we meet up on the other side of immigration.

Best of luck with all the officials,
SARAH
 
The following web site, Frequently Asked Questions - Right of Abode in HKSAR
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/faq_roaihksar.htm
gives the requirements for someone to be able to get a permanent HKID card.

If I’m reading it right it seems to be important for children born outside of Hong Kong that at least one of their parents is a Chinese citizen. Otherwise the child has to live in HK for seven years to quality themselves rather than from their parents.

SARAH
 
Hi Sarah, can I ask how old your son was when he applied for the HKID card, SAR passport and "hui xiang jing'. Did your son have to give up his british citizenship? My son was born in the UK as well as myself (I don't have a SAR passport) so I thought, actually I was told that his not entitled to the SAR passport and "hui xiang jing' unless he gives up his british citizenship. Thanks

Baby
 
I was born in HK but hold an Australian passport and my husband is an American. My baby born last year in HK.

happymebaby, you are right, both America and China DON'T allow dual citizenship. That means "theoratically" your baby have to give up his British citizenship to obtain a "hui xiang jing". But, my baby have American, Australian passport/citizenship together with "hui xiang jing", HKSAR passport and HK ID card. I think more important is wheather you or your husband have Chinese citizenship.
 
It may not be Chinese law but this is the way I view my children?s citizenship. My children are British citizens as a birth right because I was born in England and my British. Likewise my children have Hong Kong citizenship as a birth right because their father was born in Hong Kong and has Hong Kong citizenship. Their father is also of Chinese origin (his parents were born on the mainland) so as a birth right my children also can have a "hui xiang jing".

My children didn?t ask for all these citizenships they were given them because were born to parents with these citizenships. Thus I think it unfair to ask them to give one up just because one country doesn?t want to allow dual nationality. With this view I was fine collecting all the different passports for my children and not mentioning that they had other passports (and I do realise that this could be technically against the law!)

When we applied for the Chinese "hui xiang jing" I didn?t go only my husband took the children. No one in the office there asked if my children had another nationality and my husband didn?t volunteer the information. When you volunteer information people always seem to get upset with you so we?ve learnt not to.

Contrast this with my brother?s wife, who is also Chinese from Hong Kong. She left Hong Kong to settle in England with my brother. After three years she applied and was granted for British citizenship. Once she had her British passport the Chinese government wouldn?t let her travel to China on her "hui xiang jing". They knew that something was wrong because her HKID card had run out. So she was forced to buy a visa and travel to China on her UK passport. I?m OK with this because my sister-in-law made a conscious decision to apply for the UK citizenship and thus put her Chinese citizenship in jeopardy.

I realise that the law may not see things exactly as I do. But it seems to me that the Chinese officials don?t really understand the Chinese law because every time I hear of someone applying for a "hui xiang jing" different rules apply. (I know one boy who was given one with a UK passport as a travel document.)

But now to answer your question. My son who was born in the UK applied for a SAR passport in February 1998. He already had a "hui xiang jing" at this time because he had a Hong Kong re-entry permit (a document which pre-dates the SAR passport).

Hope this helps,
SARAH
 
Sarah,
Just a matter of interest, what means by "HKID card had run out" ? I thought there is no expiry date for HKID card.
 
While it is true that the HKID cards don?t have an expiry date, the government keeps changing the style of them; so far I?ve had three different styles of ID card. If you don?t get the new style at the right time then they are considered out of date. My sister-in-law was living in England when she should have changed her ID card and so had problems when she tried to use it.
 
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