KoreaToday Seoul Immigration Office Gearing Up for Better Services
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Seoul is no longer home only to Koreans. Nearly one third of 850,000 documented foreigners in Korea live shoulder-to-shoulder in the capital city, driving the Seoul Immigration Office to play the most influential role in exercising immigration policies and emerge as the de facto center for immigration administration.
Despite the growing number of foreigners, however, its working procedures, manpower and service quality are stuck at the level of a decade ago, inviting a myriad of complaints.
Taking charge early this month, Woo Ki-boong, director general of the Seoul Immigration Office, said he will make all-out efforts to revamp the office to offer better and more efficient services to visitors.
``The top priority for this year is easing administrative congestion by streamlining the process. This is for both immigration staff and visitors,’’ Woo said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. ``A variety of fresh measures will be introduced to resolve congestion.’’
Noting that less than 100 officials handle more than 3,000 immigration affairs per day, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the nationwide workload, he said, ``Under current conditions, better services are unlikely.’’
Upon inauguration, the chief administrator formed a special task force to blow fresh wind into the changeless organization, hoping to produce visible improvements within the next two months.
``Everything will be changed, including office location, manpower and working processes,’’ the chief said. Offices at the immigration building will also be completely relocated.
The office will also encourage more customers to use online and phone counseling services for efficient administration.
For instance, the office runs an immigration call center, which provides multilingual counseling services on the top nine most sought-after immigration issues, including visas, naturalization tests and refugee-related issues in 18 languages. Consultation is available from 9 a.m. through 6 p.m. on weekdays by calling 1345. An expat-only Web site (www.hikorea.go.kr), which enables foreigners to handle five major administrative affairs online, is now in operation. But officials said their user traffic is still shy of expectations due to a lack of media exposure.
Helping Tide Over Crisis
Another foremost mission of the office this year is tiding over the deepening economy recession, the chief official said.
``Attracting foreign investment is not our role. But we can make foreign investors stay here longer, drawing more overseas funds, by offering outstanding immigration services. And I think it will help attract more foreign investment in the long run,’’ the 51-year-old said.
He stressed a ``foreign investor-only help center’’ will open on the first floor of the headquarters within months.
Due to space constraints, some divisions of the office have been located in another building near the headquarters and a fast-track services policy for investors has not yet been introduced.
``The center will enable foreign investors to quickly resolve any immigration issues,’’ Woo said, adding that very division is to dispatch officials to the center to ensure what he calls a ``one-stop service.’’
It also plans to invite foreign investors and workers to the office on a regular basis to listen to their complaints over immigration affairs. ``Their opinions will be valuable in upgrading regulations,’’ he said.
Supporting foreign spouses
The Seoul office estimates more than 34,000 migrant spouses live in its district as of the end of last year, accounting for 28 percent of 122,000 around the country.
To help their settlement, the office has appointed 24 migrant spouses as advisors available around the clock by phone or face-to-face.
It operates an online community (cafe.daum.net/immigration) in which members can share information regarding a variety of issues including immigration policies, job opportunities and community news. The Web site also serves as an interactive channel between the immigration authorities and nearly 7,800 registered migrants.
The immigration building has a migrant spouse-only lounge on its third floor, the ``I With You Lounge,’’ where they can enjoy undisturbed time sharing information with officials and those in similar situations.
It also seeks to form a partnership with Seoul-based universities to provide customized education service to migrants’ children, the first program of its kind to be initiated at the Seoul office.
``Many studies found migrant children underachieve in education, mainly due to a lack of harmony with their peers. I expect the program to narrow the educational gap between the two groups,’’ the chief said.
Under the program, participating university students will receive credits in exchange for teaching. The office has already formed a partnership with four universities ㅡ Ewha Womans, Sookmyung Women’s, Seoul National Education and Sungkyul universities.
``Temporary or one-time events can’t significantly help. We will carry through these programs without fail,’’ he said.
