Amendment to the Korean Immigration Act Supports Foreign Children in Cases of Child Abuse

In early April 2019 the Chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee proposed an Amendment to the Immigration Act of Korea , with the facial purpose of implement more supportive regulations to assist foreign children that are victims of child abuse. Please note, unlike in the United States and some other Western countries, being born in Korea does not, automatically, grant you the right to Korean citizenship. The Amendment shall be effective upon promulgation. For an article on deportation from Korean please see: Korean Immigration Deportation, Departure/Exit Orders. For an article on challenging a decision of Immigration please see: Challenging a Korean Immigration Order at the Administrative Court of Korea.

Major Provisions of the Amendment to the Korean Immigration Act

To lessen the burden caused by a complex and lengthy Korean Immigration process, the Legislation & Judicial Committee decided to propose this Amendment to Korea’s Immigration Act. The salient parts of the Amendment to the Immigration Act are as follows:

In cases in which a criminal or other case is pending, a foreign child and his or her parents or guardian are eligible to file a VISA-extension for the period of time until the proceedings complete.
For the evaluation and process of the beforementioned extension of the stay in Korea, the Minister of Justice may request information from relevant agencies about the foreigner’s records regarding certain payments in arrears, such as administrative fines or insurance fees.
In accordance with the Framework Act on Electronic Documents and Transactions, the Minister of Justice may convert certain VISA application documents into “digitized documents” in order to make the process involving foreign legal entities, such as diplomatic missions, more efficient.

When more information is available, we shall update the reader.