[2020 National Audit] Illegal Stay of International Students Quadrupled in 5 Years... 23,631 This Year

14 Out of 100 International Students Last Year Were Undocumented
346 International Students Applied for Refugee Status... "Concerns Over Abuse"

On the morning of March 3rd, foreigners waiting to voluntarily report their departure as illegal immigrants are lined up at the Jeju Foreigners and Immigration Office in Yongdam-dong, Jeju City. Most of them were identified as Chinese.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Hyun-joo] #. Two university staff members and one international student affairs officer were caught by the prosecution for issuing false transcripts showing attendance rates of 70% or higher for 128 foreign students enrolled in Korean language training at University A, despite their actual attendance rates being below 70%. They also issued false payment certificates to 148 Korean language trainees who had not paid tuition fees, submitting these to the local immigration and foreigner offices to facilitate extensions of the foreigners' stay periods.

#. D University in Seoul signed an agreement with a local study abroad agency in Uzbekistan in 2015 to recruit international students, paying 20% of each student's tuition fee as a commission. From 2015 to 2017, D University paid a total of 332.54 million KRW to the local agency as commission for recruiting 568 students, according to an audit by the Ministry of Education.

Domestic universities' eagerness to increase the number of foreign students has been exploited by brokers and students using study visas as a route for illegal stay.

According to data on illegal stayers by nationality for international students (D-2) and language training visas (D-4-1, D-4-7) submitted by the Ministry of Justice to Rep. Lee Tan-hee of the National Assembly's Education Committee of the Democratic Party of Korea, as of June this year, there were 23,631 illegal stayers who entered the country on student or language training visas, a fourfold increase compared to 5,879 in 2015.

This phenomenon occurred as universities indiscriminately recruited foreign students amid worsening financial conditions caused by reduced enrollment quotas and frozen tuition fees. As of last year, 21,970 out of a total of 160,165 foreign students, or 13.7%, were illegal stayers.

Lee Tan-hee, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea [Image source=Yonhap News]

Meanwhile, among foreigners who came to Korea on student visas (D category), 211 applied for refugee status in 2017, 476 in 2018, and 346 in 2019, but only 0.1% of refugee applicants won their cases. Rep. Lee's office estimated that some individuals might be abusing student visas to enter the country for illegal employment and then exploiting the lengthy refugee screening process to remain in Korea for extended periods. As of the end of July 2020, among a total of 1,062 recognized refugees, excluding 149 resettlement refugees, the average screening period for 913 individuals was 13.3 months.

Rep. Lee pointed out, "It is urgent to conduct thorough inspections of each university's international student recruitment practices and to establish systematic management measures to prevent student visas from being abused as a channel for illegal employment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.