Monday, July 12, 2010

E-2 visa regulations to be strengthened further?

Update:
This is being discussed at Dave's ESL Cafe.

Original Post:

I won't have time to translate this for a few days, I imagine, but NoCut News is reporting as of July 15, the Justice Ministry will strengthen E-2 visa regulations (again), and that perhaps marijuana tests and strengthened criminal record checks are on the way (AES should be thrilled, having petitioned the Justice ministry for years to do pot tests). The article mentions the recent Daegu molestation case, recent drug busts, and the fact that a Korean American wanted for murder taught here. Problem is, how do changes to E-2 visa issuance apply to Korean citizens?
After Interpol located R in Korea, U.S. investigators asked the Korean government to extradite him. However, because R has dual citizenship, he had been able to change his name in a Korean court and couldn’t be traced.
This isn't much different than changing E-2 visa rules in response to the Christopher Paul Neil case, even though he wasn't on an E-2 visa. The article also mentions the stats that Lee Gun-hyeon released last September, but says they were released by the Education Ministry. Odd. This Korea Times article about Choi Young-hee pushing to pass her foreign English teacher bills says the stats came from the National Police Agency:
Referring to data from the National Policy Agency, Choi said the number of foreign English teachers, caught for theft, drug, violence and rape, reached 274 over the past three years.
They were arrested for other crimes as well, but its best just to mention the most sensational ones. Not sure if it's Choi or Kang Shin-who who's responsible for that. And why not compare the crime rates of Koreans and foreign English teachers these stats provide? Perhaps because pointing out the foreign English teacher crime rate is 5 times less than the Korean crime rate might not help make a case against them? Choi has been calling for her bills to be passed for some time. The things she's calling for in Kang's article, however, don't seem all that related to her bills (criminal record checks issued within one month of applying for a job, for example).

As for the upcoming changes, we'll just have to wait and see. It seems the No Cut News article is the only article about it so far.

7 comments:

Darth Babaganoosh said...

marijuana tests were part of the blood tests way in the beginning. they were dropped because (1) they are expensive, and (2) very few hospitals here admitted they could test for it (no equipment for it? didn't know how? no one properly trained? dunno)

Darth Babaganoosh said...

as for strengthening CBCs... I've always thought the checks should be from a national database in the home country, so if that's the direction they go, I wouldn't object. All of my CBCs were done through the RCMP in any case, so no big deal to me.

But if CBCs have to be done within a month of applying for a new visa (or transferring the visa to a new job), that's a bit much.

For someone applying for jobs from outside Korea, fine. They are not put out too much, and they get an up-to-date CBC. But for those in Korea already, how does this solve anything?

If I've never left Korea for the past 2 years, putting a time constraint on a home-country CBC does nothing but inconvenience me, and possibly put me out of pocket for hundreds of dollars for no added benefit.

Taking the current 6-month limit and adding a Korean CBC (because I never left Korea in that time), well, that I understand and could get behind.

I still would like to know how they intend to strengthen regulations on teachers who are NOT on E-2 visas. I don't see the Ministry of Education picking up the slack with non-E2 hagwon teachers (non-E2 PS teachers are already covered by PS background check and health check regulations).

Stafford said...

I (respectfully) disagree with my learned colleague Mr Babaganoosh in that if you are applying for a new job either inside or from outside Korea there is a high likelihood your Criminal Check has been issued within the last month by virtue of the process of getting everything together and sending it off.
Where I do agree is if you haven't left Korea since your last visa was issued I would have thought a Korean Police check would suffice.
Either way I am glad all my crap went to immigration last week for the new job.

Darth Babaganoosh said...

if you are applying for a new job either inside or from outside Korea there is a high likelihood your Criminal Check has been issued within the last month by virtue of the process of getting everything together and sending it off.

Not necessarily. National-database CBCs, depending on the country, can take as long as 4 months to obtain. Not all of us are in the position to plan ahead 5-6 months in advance, especially in the hagwon industry where umemployment can occur on a whim.

Rather than do them one-at-time as needed, and waste months waiting for them, one should be able to order several at once and hold onto them to be used at a later date (say, on-a-whim unemployment). I did that, before they imposed the 6-month limit. Of course, now they are completely useless despite not having changed one iota except for the date issued.

Of course, I'm using logic here, none of which exists in most of these policies. I mean, how many times have we had to supply sealed transcripts over the years (also with a 6-month time limitation)? Transcripts don't change as a CBC might, yet we submit them again and again (no one has a computer in this country they can store such information?).

Where I do agree is if you haven't left Korea since your last visa was issued I would have thought a Korean Police check would suffice.

You would think so, but there you go using logic again. The only thing constant when talking about Korean Immigration policies is that nothing is constant and "policy" changes from office to office and even officer to officer within the SAME office.

Either way I am glad all my crap went to immigration last week for the new job.

I'm glad all my crap was submitted years ago and I haven't felt the need to change jobs since.

brent said...

Exactly, Darth. Why can't we be checked out once.

michael robinson said...

I'm casting around for photographs to use for the Korea narrative portions of a new East Asian History text coming out next year.....your blog keeps coming up and I admire the time and effort you have put into it. I hate doing this sort of research (internet crawling etc. to find things fast). In your Yi Kwang su piece I'm dismayed you never seemed to find my earlier monograph Cultural nationalism in Colonial Korea (U. WA press 1988)....heavy use of Yi's material and analysis thereof.

Keep up the good work.

Mike Robinson
Bloomington, IN

matt said...

Thanks for the kind words. I do enjoy the fact that there is so much information now available on the internet, but it does take time to sift through it all. Actually, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea has been on my to read list - I just haven't gotten around to it yet.