Korea's strict asylum policies and unkind officials

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By Scott Shepherd

I once flew in an Airbus A380. It's a big plane, so big that it actually has two decks; in fact, it's the largest passenger plane in the world.

The Airbuses operated by Korean Air have 409 seats. Picture that plane full of people sitting in their chairs: upstairs in the posh section where they all have cocktail glasses, down below where they clutch their plastic cups ― everyone waiting idly for take-off. Look down the aisles at all the faces, some smiling and chatting, some dozing, but all waiting, all facing the same way, all with the same destination. The crew walk up and down chiding passengers for not wearing their masks properly and for leaving bags in the aisles. It's a big plane, so there are perhaps three pilots and six or seven members of the cabin crew.

Now imagine that every person on the plane is a coming to Korea in the hope of receiving protection and recognition as a refugee. It's true; a few of them may really be economic migrants hoping to come for work, but there are many, many people on this plane because they have no choice. They are fleeing in desperation from their homes and families, from everything they know.

Of all these people on this plane, how many of them will be granted refugee status in Korea? Maybe half of them? The peasants down in economy? Or just the lords and ladies on the top deck? (I should of course point out that North Koreans are not included as "refugees" or "nanmin." They are defined as "defectors from the North" or "talbukmin," and categorized differently within Korean migration regulations.)

So how many on the plane will be granted asylum? According to statistics from a report published by Rights Exposure, of all the people on this vast Airbus, the only people who will be recognized as refugees are, in fact, the crew ― that is, 2 percent of the applicants.

Only the crew.

Around 33 or 34 passengers, or 8 percent, will receive a "humanitarian status" visa, which is more precarious even than recognition as a refugee, and offers few opportunities for work. The rest of the people on the plane are doomed either to be refused asylum relatively rapidly or else to spend years waiting in a state of uncertainty while they proceed through a series of applications and appeals, before they too are sent away.

In fact, the real proportion of people accepted as refugees is actually much lower still, as the Rights Exposure report highlights. Ninety percent of those who were "pre-assessed" at ports of entry in 2019 were prevented from even applying. That year, in a world of 7.5 or so billion people, with all its war and strife and persecution, out of 15,452 applicants ― nearly 38 Airbuses packed full of people ― there were only 79 applicants who actually received refugee status in Korea. And of them, 60 were granted this status "for resettlement or family reunion." That is to say, in a whole year, only 19 new refugees were accepted here on the basis of their own applications.

So if all the asylum seekers on our imaginary plane have no family members in Korea, now we're looking at just half of one captain being acknowledged as a refugee. Even the most fervid xenophobe can't seriously believe that only this minute fraction of asylum seekers really deserves recognition and protection.

This situation has not arisen because Korea lacks laws for granted asylum to refugees; it is because they are not implemented properly. Many workers in the Korean refugee application system, including interpreters, act unprofessionally and dishonestly. This problem is well documented in several places, and my wife witnessed it first-hand during her time working with a charity for refugees.

Indeed, just last month, I was in the Immigration Center in Incheon when I saw a Korean official refuse to help a refugee and his friend, despite the fact that they had all the required paperwork and a legitimate issue that needed to be addressed.*

They couldn't speak Korean and the official could not or would not speak English. She instead spoke to them pretty rudely, safe in the knowledge that she was the one with the power and that they couldn't understand her words (though her disrespect certainly had the power to penetrate through languages). Seeing the situation, I offered to try to help translate.

It turned out that they had already been in contact by phone and had been told that they would be able to sort out their issue. At the desk, however, the immigration official simply told me to tell them that their request was impossible. She would listen to no pleas, look at no paperwork. They had to go home, dejected. I kept in touch, and I'm glad to say that they were eventually able to find a way to resolve the problem.

The weird thing is that from my experience, in some other contexts, Koreans are often some of the kindest people you'll ever meet. It is a mystery, therefore, how we've managed to gather together the rudest, most condescending members of the population and get them all to work in the immigration offices. And remember: the refugee I met was one of those vanishingly rare people whose application was actually successful.

Within living memory, hundreds of thousands of Koreans were forced to leave the country by a devastating war; and millions of others left as, yes, economic migrants searching for work in richer countries. Now, thanks to the effort and sacrifice of several generations, Korea has become a place where people flee to, rather than from. There are real issues that accompany migration; of course there are. But the way the bureaucracy treats refugees is a disgrace to this country's good name, a stain on the honor of a nation that has achieved so much in such a short time.

None of us know when we may find ourselves in a situation where we need to seek refuge. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it has shown us that we can't complacently put our trust in the fact that we live in a rich country. It's true that we don't live in Afghanistan or Syria or Egypt, but really we never know when we'll be the ones sitting on that plane, desperately hoping to be granted asylum by an official in a strange land. For now, while we are in the position of power, we should show a little more care and love to those who are not.

* In order to protect their privacy, I have been intentionally vague about the identity of the people I met and the nature of their problem. They consented for their story to be told.

Dr. Scott Shepherd is a British-American academic. He has taught in universities in the U.K. and Korea, and is currently assistant professor of English at Chongshin University in Seoul. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.