Hong Kong court expels migrants

Ending a long, tortuous legal battle, Hong Kong’s top court has ruled that all but 200 of the more than 5,000 mainland Chinese migrants suing for the right to stay in the city must leave.

In its final verdict, the Court of Final Appeal said the right to stay applied only to migrants who arrived in Hong Kong before January 29, 1999, when Beijing overruled an earlier decision by the top court that had offered broader residency rights.