Laws: April, 2003 - Number #18

South Korea is allowing foreigners whose employers register them to remain legally until March 31, 2003. As of January 15, 2003, some 968 employers registered 1,025 unauthorized foreign workers. On December 31, 2002, there were 629,009 foreigners in South Korean, including 289,239 unauthorized foreigners, up 13 percent from 2001, and up sharply from 41,900 in 1991.

Most of the unauthorized foreigners in Korea arrived as trainees, were assigned to small Korean firms, and then stayed longer than their one-year visas permitted or ran away from their jobs because they can earn more as unauthorized workers than as trainees. The Korean government wants to replace the trainee system, launched in 1993, with a guest worker system that requires a search of the local labor market and issues three-year work permits.

The small business federation opposes the change. They argue that their labor costs would rise, even though they would not have to provide housing and food to guest workers, as they do for trainees.

Korea's National Agricultural Co-operative Federation is bringing 2,500 farm workers from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Ukraine, Mongolia and China to work as "agricultural trainees" for two years. They will be paid 600,000 won ($484) per month and provided with room and board and health and accident insurance.

The South Korean government will allow employees of foreign firms investing over $500,000 and residing in the country for eight years to apply for citizenship. Foreigners who do not invest in the country must live in Korea for 12 years to apply for permanent residency.

Japan. Until now, foreigners seeking asylum in Japan had to apply within 60 days of their arrival. A bill pending in the Diet would allow foreigners to stay for up to six months in Japan before applying for asylum, and make other changes to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law.

Two cases of foreigners who were acquitted of crimes but remained in detention when the government appealed were considered by the High Court. In a heavily criticized decision in May 2000, the Tokyo High Court allowed prosecutors to continue holding a Nepalese man, Govinda Mainali, despite a lower court acquittal in a 1997 slaying. The court simply said there was sufficient reason to continue the detention.

Japan has accepted about 11,000 Southeast Asian refugees since 1980, 80 percent of them Vietnamese. Starting April 1, 2004, those recognized as refugees in Japan will no longer be able to bring their families to Japan, since the government concluded that there is no more persecution in their countries of origin.

Soh Ji-young, "Ministry eases criteria for permanent residence," Korea Times, March 17, 2003. Hiroshi Matsubara, "Foreigners locked up despite acquittal, Japan Times, February 28, 2003. "Japan to scrap 60-day rule on refugee application," Kyodo News Service, February 26, 2003.