1 out of 5 foreign nationals in Korea are undocumented residents

Jeju International Airport is filled with undocumented foreign nationals and tourists with expired traveler visas voluntarily returning to their home countries amid the spread of the COVID-19 in this photo taken on March 13, 2020. Newsis

By Lee Hae-rin

The number of undocumented foreign nationals in Korea has hit its highest figure in nearly two years.

As of July, a total of 395,068 undocumented foreign nationals live in Korea, according to the annual statistics report by the Ministry of Justice's Korea Immigration Service, Thursday.

It is the highest figure since September 2020, when the figure stood at 396,000. The report also shows that the number and percentage of undocumented foreign residents has increased steadily over the course of the year.

The number has grown by an average of approximately 1,000 every month, increasing from last December's 388,000 to around 390,000 in January and 391,000 in February, eventually bringing up the number to 394,000 in May.

There are approximately 2.08 million foreign residents in the country. The portion of the undocumented immigrants population went up steadily from 2019's 15.5 percent and remained at over 19 percent since November 2020. It finally surpassed 20 percent this year.

Most of the undocumented came here for jobs while the country was campaigning to attract foreign tourists before hosting the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and became somewhat settled here during the pandemic, according to Seol Dong-hoon, a professor of sociology at Jeonbuk National University and the former head of the Korean International Migration Studies Association.

“During the two years in which foreign tourist were lured here before the Olympics Games, the number of undocumented foreign residents went up by over 100,000,” Seol said. The government encouraged them to return to their home countries and even cracked down on them right after the Olympics, but then the pandemic broke out.

Seol argued that the pandemic created “optimal conditions” for undocumented nationals to settle here as there were no such major crackdowns on them during the pandemic, leading, he claims, to the increase in undocumented residents.

Seol said that Korea is among many developed nations around the globe to have seen undocumented immigration increase during the pandemic. Hwang Pill-kyu, a lawyer affiliated with GongGam Human Rights Law Foundation who works with migrant labor groups, echoed Seol's opinion.

“If you look at other countries, undocumented immigration is a universal and inevitable issue,” Hwang said. He said that the country's immigration system allowed an influx of undocumented immigrants and now needs to devise a long-term solution to regulate immigration and manage the migrant population effectively, while guaranteeing their basic human rights.

Hwang added that the government and private sector have ironically played roles in aiding the increase in undocumented immigration by relying on migration as a form of cheap labor. Thus, the government needs to seek several policy options for people with undocumented status so as to regulate undocumented immigration and the labor shortage on the basis that “undocumented foreign residents are also human beings,” he said.