I Got Korean Love

The ruling Grand National Party is seeking the revision of a law currently prohibiting Korean expatriates from casting ballots in domestic elections.

GNP senior policy-maker Jang Yoon-seok said the revision is based on the Constitutional Court’s ruling that keeping Koreans living abroad from voting in domestic elections is unconstitutional.

He said that his party will promote the revision at the parliament’s plenary session in September.

Jang said that with a series of elections approaching over the next several years, it is an appropriate time to revise the election law. He said the GNP will hold a public hearing early next month to gauge public opinion.

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About 17-thousand-600 South Koreans acquired U.S. citizenship last year.

According to the Bureau of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), 122-thousand Mexicans acquired U.S. citizenship last year, more than any other ethnic group. They were followed by applicants from India, the Philippines, China and Vietnam. South Korea ranked seventh.

A total of 174-thousand-453 South Koreans have obtained U.S. citizenship since 1998.

Overall, about 920-thousand South Koreans have acquired permanent residency in America since 1940.

It seems some South Koreans will do anything to gain residence abroad. This article is also a good example of a phenomemon I touched on this post, where even when the subject is inter-Korean relations, South Korea is never “South Korea” but always “Korea”. Thus we have “North Korean defectors who are originally from Korea”.

On the 25th Radio Free Asia reported that the government of the United Kingdom is planning to deport all defectors from North Korea asking for asylum in the UK but whom fingerprint records say have been resident in South Korea.

According to the broadcast, the UK Border Agency explained that, “we are discovering that among North Korean refugees asking for asylum there are people who fraudulently claim to have come to the United Kingdom directly from North Korea. To determine who is telling the truth we have requested fingerprint records from the South Korean government.”

The broadcast reported that, “based on results from fingerprints submitted to the South Korean government, the UK government will begin forcibly deporting people discovered to have made fraudulent refugee claims.”

A Korean interpreter who aids North Korean refugees in the United Kingdom said, “when current migrants to the United Kingdom are interviewed, an important point will be whether or not they have lived in South Korea. Recently young housewives who say they have come from North Korea have had their refugee asylum applications turned down because they were judged to have come from South Korea and were treated as ordinary immigrants.”

The background to this strong decision from the UK government is the rapidly increasing number of people asking for asylum as refugees from North Korea, the broadcast said, and the UK Home Ministry said that since 2007 applications such status have increased to 245, some 13 times the number in 2007.

In 2007 North Koreans were the ninth-most common nationality to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, the first year for them to place in the top 10. Compared to a year ago the number of North Koreans caught in various types of fraudulent applications has doubled to 180, the eight-most common nationality in that group.

Radio Free Asia reported that so far over 850 people have requested asylum in the UK by claiming to be “North Korean defectors”.

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