Korea Times
By Lee Kwi-nam
Minister of Justice
The 21st century is defined as ``the Great Migration Era'' because of
stark increases in the flow of goods and capital and mass movement of
populations across borders.
According to the UNDP's Human Development Report 2009, one in every
seven of the world's population, approximately 740 million people are
migrants whose mobility was spurred by job-seeking and among them, 214
million are international migrants who moved across national borders.
In an era of mass migration, countries around the world are rushing to
attract the best and the brightest who are equipped with advanced
knowledge and information, and capable of leading in technology
innovation.
As a way of attracting talented individuals, drastic reform of
immigration policies is needed. At the same time a higher level of
cooperation between states is required to respond to the issues arising
from growing illegal immigration.
Change in Korea's Immigration Policy
Only 30 years ago, Korea simply and solely took into consideration the
Korean nationals migrating overseas. However, today Korea has become
one of the most quintessential immigrant nations with a large immigrant
population. The number of immigrants in Korea has exceeded 1.15
million, accounting for 2.3 percent of the entire population.
In addition, the composition of immigrants has diversified in range
from physical laborers to immigrants by marriage, international
students, professional workers and so forth.
On the other hand, since 2002, the number of people who have lost or
renounced their nationality has increased to approximately 1.8 million,
far surpassing the current 83,000 naturalized or newly reinstated
Korean citizens. And this phenomenon in the net outflow of Korean
citizens has been continuing.
Boosting National Competitiveness
In the era of a knowledge-based information society of the 21stcentury,
countries are waging a war for talent to strengthen the competitiveness
of the nation. Attracting talent who will lead in technology innovation
and high added value industry is the integral part of sustainable
growth engine.
As part of such effort, the Ministry of Justice has introduced Business
start-up visa (D8) and Job-seekers visa (D10). In order to draw more
foreign professionals who received diplomas from local universities,
the government has eased regulations for foreign job seekers.
Immigrants who invest a certain amount of money ($500,000) in creating
jobs in Korea are granted a "Green Card".
In addition, the government has implemented various support measures to
attract medical tourists. For example, from July, foreigners are
allowed to get new visas to get medical treatment. A foreign medical
tourist visa is granted to patients who need a long-term stay to
receive medical treatment at local hospitals and institutes. The visa
issuance process has also been streamlined, in particular, for Chinese
medical tourists. The number of documents required to apply for a
medical tourist visa has decreased markedly to two from seven.
Starting from next year, Online Visa Nomination and Inspection System
will be adopted to facilitate the attraction of talent with Visa
Nominator such as Korean Consulates abroad, KOTRA for local entities.
Meanwhile, there has been criticism that a rigid single-nationality
regulation not only makes it hard to attract talents from foreign
countries, but also encourages foreigners to renounce Korean
nationality.
To tackle this problem, the government has unveiled a plan to
revise the Nationality Law to permit dual nationality for foreign
professionals, overseas Korean adoptees, immigrants through marriage by
easing the obligation to rescind their own nationality.
When it comes to obtaining permanent residency in Korea, the government
also plans to expand opportunity for professional and skilled foreign
workers to be helpful to our society.
However, the bottom line in revising the laws and regulations is that it should be a manageable and orderly system.
Promoting Legitimate Stay of Foreigners
As the number of foreign residents in Korea has surpassed 1.15 million,
the number of those who illegally sojourn has also been on the rise.
The authorities have been enforcing consistent and intensified laws
against the illegal aliens, thus reducing the figure to about 184,000
as of September 2009 from 220,000 as of the end of 2007.
Negative sentiment against illegal aliens appears to be growing. An
increase in illegal aliens not only hinders the government's endeavors
to attract skilled and highly specialized foreign workers, it causes
frictions between foreign migrant workers and locals in the job market,
but also makes the living area of illegal aliens become slums.
To ease anti-foreign workers sentiment, under the principles of
the rule of law, the government strictly cracks down on the foreigners
illegally overstaying their visa.
At the same time, the government encourages the illegal migrant workers
to depart this country of their own volition by discharging them from
fines and minimizing entry restrictions, which enables them to re-enter
Korea.
Recently, criminal offences by foreigners are raising concerns in our
society. Incidence of offences by foreigners has jumped from 13,000 in
2004 to 34,000 in 2008.
Foreigners who were deported after being convicted of criminal offences
re-enter the country under fake identities, and are involved in other
crimes. However, the lack of Foreigners Identity Management system has
become a stumbling block to effective law enforcement.
In this regard, to protect the Korean nationals and innocent foreigners
against crimes and to promote safety and security, the government plans
to require all foreigners entering Korea to have their fingerprints
registered.
The Ministry of Justice will propose the revision of the Immigration
Law so that non-Koreans visiting Korea are obliged to provide their
biometric information (fingerprints and photograph, etc.) to the
authorities upon their arrival.
The bill on the revision of the Immigration Law will be submitted to
the National Assembly, and it will take effect as early as the second
half of 2012.
The revised law, if passed, will oblige all foreigners over age 17,
excluding diplomats and those who carry out their official duties, to
register their fingerprints and a photo when they visit this country
and apply for alien registration.
We may face an accusation that it could infringe on the human rights of
foreigners and discriminate them. But that is not necessarily true.
Koreans are required to provide their fingerprints and other basic
personal information when they are issued their Resident Registration
Card at age 17.
Customer-Oriented Services
The Ministry of Justice has minimized potential discomforts of airport
users by unburdening them from obligation to summit an immigration
form, introducing the cutting-edge Machine Readable Passport (MRP),
which enhances accuracy of immigration inspection and sharply reduces
wait times for immigration inspection. Recently, we also have launched
unmanned immigration inspection which is being put on a trial run.
Thanks to such administrative innovation, Incheon Airport won the first
place in ACI Airport Service Quality Award in 2006, and has received
the same award for the following three consecutive years until this
year. In 2007, the airport immigration office has also earned the
Public Service Award from the United Nations.
Any Korean national who is over 17 years of age and registered as
a valid user at the registration center located in Incheon airport,
could immediately use the unmanned immigration inspection service. In
the near future, the system will be in service at all airports and
seaports across the country, and the service will also be open to
registered foreigners as well.
In addition, to improve convenience of foreigners residing in Korea,
the Ministry of Justice has established "e-Government for foreigners"
and provided advisory services in 18 different languages for foreign
residents to deal with issues of immigration, stay and nationality
through the unified "1345" number which can be accessed from all around
the country.
The e-Government Web site (www.hikorea.go.kr) offers approximately 30
foreigner-related services including re-entry permit, extension of stay
and preventing any possible inconveniences to foreigners by requiring
them to visit immigration offices.
The Ministry of Justice will continuously try further to provide
foreign residents with a convenient living environment by simplifying
administrative process including expansion of the online administrative
services.
Creating Open Society
As of September, it is estimated that the number of immigrants by
marriage stands at 120,000 and 10,000 foreigners obtain Korean
citizenship every year.
The increase of residing immigrants including immigrants through
marriage has given rise to what is so called the "multicultural
phenomenon" in Korean society, and thus it is a paramount task for us
to seamlessly integrate foreign immigrants into Korean society.
Under these circumstances, the Korean government enacted the "Basic Act
on the Treatment of Foreigners Residing in Korea" in May, 2007, in a
bid to support foreign residents in settling down in our society
without much difficulty, realizing their full potential, and creating
the atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding between the locals
and foreigners.
In particular, the Ministry of Justice launched the ``Social
Integration Program,'' which provides education on the understanding of
Korean society and Korean language for foreign immigrants by marriage,
and gives incentives for those who earn credit from it when they obtain
citizenship.
As such, policies for foreigners which seek social integration and well-established order have taken root in our society.
However, the Ministry of Justice and the government alone will not be able to realize a genuinely mature cosmopolitan nation.
It is about time we have to constantly gather thoughts and wisdom from
all sectors of our society, including civic groups, media, locals and
foreigners, and pay special interest in foreign residents so that we
would ultimately create a social environment where foreigners
contribute to further development and social integration of this
country no longer as strangers, but as part of society.
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