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Many of the Vietnamese people in Hong Kong reside there largely because of the war and instability in Vietnam for so many years. The illegal entry of Vietnamese refugees was a problem that plagued the Hong Kong government for 25 years. The problem was only resolved in 2000.

After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the victorious Vietcong forces reunified the northern and southern halves of the country, many people began to migrate out of fear of the new Communist Government.

Hong Kong received its first wave of Vietnamese refugees on 4 May 1975. A 3,743-strong refugee group was found hiding in a Danish freighter and were accepted as refugees. This started a wave of refugee migrations to Hong Kong.

In 1979, Hong Kong declared itself a First Port of Refuge. At the same time, the Vietcong were committing population cleansing operations of ethnic Chinese in major cities in Vietnam, causing many Vietnamese to seek refugee status in Hong Kong. In 1979 alone, more than 68,700 people arrived in Hong Kong. A year later, more than 100,000 Vietnamese sought refugee rights in Hong Kong. At this time, these migrants usually succeeded in gaining refugee status, and were eventually accepted by Western countries.

By 1987, Western countries were lowering their quotas for Vietnamese refugees. This, coupled with a large increase of Vietnamese migrants entering Hong Kong (many of them misled by a rumour that Vietnamese migrants could gain amnesty simply by landing on Hong Kong soil), led the government to adopt a Comprehensive Plan of Action on 16 June 1988. The plan mainly separated political refugees (classified as refugees) from economic refugees (classified as "boat people"). Economic refugees were considered illegal immigrants; they were denied the right to be transferred to a third country and were all sent back to Vietnam.

The Comprehensive Plan of Action was carried out by 1994. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the Hong Kong government began to broadcast a Vietnamese radio announcement in an attempt to deter Vietnamese migrants from trying to enter Hong Kong. This came to be known as the Bắt đầu từ nay broadcast.

In the early 1990s, the Hong Kong government began an orderly repatriation programme. It began as a voluntary programme, but it was poorly received by the Vietnamese migrants, despite an agreement with the Vietnamese government that barred retributions against the migrants upon their return. Eventually, the Hong Kong government decided to forcibly repatriate the Vietnamese boat people.

As the situation in Vietnam improved, and the flow of boat people was stemmed, Hong Kong's status as a Port of First Refuge was revoked on 9 January 1998. However, until 2000, Hong Kong still issued identity cards to the boat people in Hong Kong in an effort to allow them to assimilate into the society.

The United Nations still owes Hong Kong HK$1.16 billion for its handling of Vietnamese boat people. The debt remains unpaid as of 2006.

Most Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong spent time at RAF Sek Kong.^{[citation needed]} The runway of the former RAF airfield was turned into a holding facility for much of the 1980s and 1990s. Prior to the 1997 handover, the facility reverted to as an airfield and is now used by the PLA Air Force.