Job Discussion Forums

[clark.w.griswald]

I saw an interesting post over at Forumosa regarding someone caught teaching illegally on a visitor�s visa. From my understanding of the story, the person was caught while teaching illegally but was neither fined nor deported at the time. She left the country of her own free will and upon re-enty has been �detained� for the earlier illegal teaching. It would appear, I guess, that somehow she slipped through immigration on her way out last time (no doubt due to an oversight at customs or a failure to put information into a computer system prior to her departure). The interesting thing is that she was flagged and �detained� upon her re-entry. It is not clear whether she was coming back in on a new visitor�s visa or whether she was arriving with the intention of getting a landing visa. My take on this is that she hasn�t really been detained as such, but is being held until the next available flight out of the country with the carrier that brought her in, as she is being refused entry into Taiwan based upon her earlier illegal teaching. She was here on a visitor�s visa and apparently still has stuff here in Taiwan, so I think it safe to conclude that she has the intention of returning for a further period of time, possibly to take on more work.

This is a good example of how unreliable working here illegally can be. Each time you take a visa run, raises the potential of having a visa refused, or in the case of this individual, re-entry refused. Assuming that you have been here for a couple of months, you have more than likely accumulated some possessions and incurred costs such as rental deposits etc. It is likely that these people travel lightly when taking a visa run as they only expect to be away for a day or two, and therefore the majority of their stuff remains in Taiwan. If you were to be refused a visa, or worse, refused re-entry, then you may lose the possessions and deposits etc. making this a pretty costly exercise. If you are lucky you may have a friend who could assist you, but logistically this is likely to be difficult.

It is my impression that while this situation isn�t a daily occurrence, it is not at all uncommon. I would think that each week some foreigner encounters a visa problem that causes some inconvenience to them, and if that foreigner happens to have been intentionally working illegally, then it appears that the foreign affairs police at the airport have little tolerance for this. I assume that the girl in question begged to be allowed re-entry to gather her things together. From what I read in the article this permission was not granted, and the girls friend needs to take her possessions to the airport for her. On the other hand, legal workers who unintentionally overstay for a few days or a week, are often granted a short period to get things together before leaving Taiwan with a departure date set at about a week into the future.

It seems that if we respect the law, then sometimes, just sometimes, the law respects us.

[TaoyuanSteve]

Some pertinent facts from the thread over on Forumosa:

[puiwaihin]

One consequence of overstaying or being caught in violation of a visitor's visa is that they will not issue you a landing visa for 3 years and they will not allow you to convert a visitor's visa to a resident's visa.

If you can work legally it is better for you. If you work illegally and get caught it is a big inconvenience. You won't get caned as you might somewhere else, but you are better off without the risk.

[clark.w.griswald]

[TaoyuanSteve]

A few points.

The use of the word "fugitive" was the OP's over on Forumosa.

We know that the person was definitely teaching illegally because her friend told us so in the story. That is clear to us. However, from a legal point of view, she has been charged with nothing and, as a result, convicted of nothing. Given that, she is still innocent. She was informed of nothing and allowed to go on about her business; indeed, she was allowed to leave the country without so much as a note in her passport. Her subsequent detention upon re-arrival brings the whole system into disrepute.

The thread on Forumosa does not reflect the attitude of "well she was working illegally..." In fact only Satellite TV reflects this point of view. Bassman takes a realistic stance that authorities can deny entry to any of us for any reason (but that he'd be peeved if it happened to him). The rest believe the authorities screwed up or are incompetent, hence the quotes above.

I don't take the view that this person wasn't at fault, simply that the authorities seriously mishandled the case. If they were going to deport her, then they should have done so.

Personally, this case makes me feel less secure because the of their arbitrary behaviour. There was no due process followed; and no opportunity for the accused to answer to the charge or offer any defense. In fact, she was led to believe that nothing at all was amiss. The end result is any of us, at any time could be subject to this kangaroo court mentality. The moral of the story seems to be that we need to be distrustful of authorities.

I also believe that no clamp down on illegal employment is complete without a firm clampdown on the companies engaging in this behaviour, something which clearly did not happen in this case.

While I agree that ARC is the way to go for people who intend to live here (this site is full of my posts listing the reasons why), I think this case serves as more of a reason for all of us to be distrustful of authorities and less as a deterence of illegal residence.

[clark.w.griswald]