 Hong Kong is a bastion of free expression, art, culture and commerce. While mainland China was being ravaged by Mao's cultural revolution in the 1960s, Hong Kong was still a British colony and home to a radical experiment in free market capitalism. This thriving, bustling, dynamic city has been made possible by the free market, indeed the freest market in the world. Britain returned Hong Kong to China today, indeed 156 years of colonial rule. By the time partial control was handed over to the Chinese government, creating the one-country-two systems model per capita wealth here had eclipsed that of even the UK. That experiment may be coming to an abrupt end. China's People's Congress adopted a national security law that would allow the mainland to clamp down on civil liberties, destroying the political freedom that made this semi-autonomous city a desirable place to live. The US government has threatened to revoke Hong Kong's special trading partner status and levy-targeted sanctions to oppose Beijing's actions. But there's another foreign policy lever the government could pull that's non-violent, humane and beneficial to US citizens. Make it easier for Hong Kongers to leave by welcoming them into America. Not only would it be good for them, but it would also be good for the West. Ilya Somen is a law professor at George Mason University and the author of the new book Free to Move, Footvoting Migration and Political Freedom. He argues that the US should have an open-door policy to Hong Kongers and eventually mainland Chinese dissidents as well. The United Kingdom has already announced plans to extend visas for up to 3 million fleeing Hong Kongers. They would make important contributions to our economies just as previous Chinese and Hong Kong immigrants and others from that part of the world have done. Second, this would be a very important victory in the war of ideas that is arising between the US and the West on the one hand and the authoritarian government of China on the other. Those who could benefit most from such an escape hatch are critics of the Chinese Communist Party like Joshua Wong, who has already had a taste of what it's like to lose your civil liberties. He was arrested in his home in 2019 in an effort by Hong Kong officials to undermine a large protest planned for the following day. And he was barred from running for office because of his political party's stated belief that Hong Kongers should be allowed to determine the city's sovereignty by democratic vote. I would sum up this National Security Law as a speech crime. Once you call on President Xi Jinping to step down, you might be arrested, prosecuted. I might not be arrested by Hong Kong police, but arrested by Beijing appointed agents or secret police. The prosecution might not take place in Hong Kong. I might take place in mainland China. I might be locked up in prison in Beijing. That's a nightmare. What if, before that happens, Wong and other Hong Kong activists had the option to get out? Democrats, they want open borders and they don't mind crime. Think of it. Even the immigration hawks within the Trump administration, Soman argues, should appreciate that granting automatic entry to Hong Kongers would be a politically savvy move against the Chinese regime. Horrified by the difficulties faced by displaced Jews during and after World War Two, President Truman piloted America's first refugee program, starting with a 1945 executive order followed by the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. America granted similar status to refugees of Communist Cuba in 1966 and the Soviet Union starting in 1953, including Soman's parents who left in 1979 when he was five years old. The U.S. government at the time recognized, of course, the hard reason to do this was to help oppress people for its own sake, but they also recognized that it was an important moral victory for the U.S. and the Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union. Soman's Jewish family was considered a persecuted ethnic minority, but he believes all Hong Kongers faced with the loss of their freedoms should be given the opportunity to exit. Another Hong Konger at risk is Sixtus Bazio Lung, who voters elected in 2016 to the Legislative Council but lost his position after showing up at his swearing-in ceremony draped in a banner that read, Hong Kong is not a part of China. In 2018, the government sentenced Lung to four weeks in prison after convicting him of illegally trying to re-enter the Legislature to retake his oaths. China's new law unambiguously criminalizes Lung's pro-independence views, which he explained to Reason in 2019. If Hong Kong remained under the ruling of CCP, we can never achieve universal suffrage, separation of power, freedom of speech, all kind of freedom. Once China implements the new law, all of Hong Kong's citizens will likely find their speech, movements and other liberties increasingly curtailed. The National Security Law will just control the free flow of information and the free flow of capital. Somen wants the US to go farther than the UK by extending to Hong Kongers and eventually all Chinese dissidents and offer a permanent residency. To get into the US, people wait for years, including other refugees such as Syrians who were just blocked from getting in here. Would it be fair to let Hong Kongers and eventually Chinese dissidents jump the line in that sense? The way to remedy that kind of injustice is not to keep out Chinese or specific subcategories like Hong Kongers, is to address the issue by making it easier to let in more people into the future. There really is no line. Right now, Trump has virtually shut down letting in virtually any refugees of any kind. The Trump administration has been dismantling the refugee system, first by capping the number of people allowed in from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries, and then with his remain in Mexico policy, which forces those applying for refugee status to wait outside the country. Politico reports that a component of the GOP's 2020 election strategy is to make an aggressive stance towards China a central issue and portray their opponents as soft on China. Somen says this presents an opportunity. If they're real China hawks, then they should welcome this opportunity to both get some of China's most talented people to come here as opposed to stay in China where they will be under the control of that government and at the same time win an important moral and political victory. Wong, however, has no immediate plans to leave Hong Kong. He says he's hanging around to resist the Communist Party's takeover of his city for as long as he can. I have no hope towards the government, but I still hope towards people and the global community. We can keep our momentum and let Beijing realize that how we never stop our fight.