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michpottier
Joined: 03 May 2010
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 Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:26 pm Post subject: Canadian Embassy in Seoul no longer has Immigration section! |
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Well if you look on the Canadian Embassy's website in Seoul, they have just axed their entire immigration section as of January 28th, 2013. So if you need a student visa, temp visa, or a permanent residence visa for anyone, it can no longer be done in Korea. They shifted everything to Manila for some reason. They say it will save money and make things more efficient, but do not say how. My guess it will take longer to get anything done, especially if Korean documents are involved.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/notices/2013-01-28.asp
This leaves me to wonder what exactly they are doing in the huge building in central Seoul? If they are not processing immigration documents, what are they doing with their time. Do we really need an eight floor building to replace lost passports and and provide notarization? Are they really needed to 'build' business relationships or spread Canadian culture and relations?
According to the Embassy's last audit (2007)their were only around 20 Canadians working there and around 60 Koreans (locals). Their operating budget was over $8,000,000 annually.
http://www.international.gc.ca/about-a_propos/oig-big/2007/Seoul.aspx?lang=eng&view=d
To put that into perspective the Canadian embassy hires around the same amount of Canadians as a large Hagwon. Most of the other major embassies provide the full range of services and actually hire a lot of their own citizens and provide visas for them. The Canadian embassy does not provide visas except to the 'diplomats'. Seems like a real shame to me, as they could have replaced a lot of those local hires with Canadians, especially since there is a multitude of Canadians with relevant education in the country teaching. |
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dairyairy
Joined: 17 May 2012
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Feel lucky. The US embassy does far more to help Koreans escape to the USA than help Americans in Korea. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 4:23 pm Post subject: Re: Canadian Embassy in Seoul no longer has Immigration sect |
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| michpottier wrote: |
Well if you look on the Canadian Embassy's website in Seoul, they have just axed their entire immigration section as of January 28th, 2013. So if you need a student visa, temp visa, or a permanent residence visa for anyone, it can no longer be done in Korea. They shifted everything to Manila for some reason. They say it will save money and make things more efficient, but do not say how. My guess it will take longer to get anything done, especially if Korean documents are involved.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/notices/2013-01-28.asp
This leaves me to wonder what exactly they are doing in the huge building in central Seoul? If they are not processing immigration documents, what are they doing with their time. Do we really need an eight floor building to replace lost passports and and provide notarization? Are they really needed to 'build' business relationships or spread Canadian culture and relations?
According to the Embassy's last audit (2007)their were only around 20 Canadians working there and around 60 Koreans (locals). Their operating budget was over $8,000,000 annually.
http://www.international.gc.ca/about-a_propos/oig-big/2007/Seoul.aspx?lang=eng&view=d
To put that into perspective the Canadian embassy hires around the same amount of Canadians as a large Hagwon. Most of the other major embassies provide the full range of services and actually hire a lot of their own citizens and provide visas for them. The Canadian embassy does not provide visas except to the 'diplomats'. Seems like a real shame to me, as they could have replaced a lot of those local hires with Canadians, especially since there is a multitude of Canadians with relevant education in the country teaching. |
AS much as I dislike the service provided by the Canadian Embassy in Seoul and have long considered it substandard at best.. in their defense....
The immigration center / visa section of the consular office at the embassy in Seoul had no direct involvement with Canadians or, for the most part, Koreans either.
Immigration applications were largely done in Canada by the various offices of the CIC and not processed locally. They were just left in a box to be sent with the consular mail or sent directly by the applicant.
Koreans don't need TRVs to come as tourists.
Proper student visas (more than 6 months) and working holiday visas (as few as they were) for Koreans will now be processed at the regional center based in Manila.
Other nationals who actually need a TRV who would have been seeking TRVs in Korea (very few each year) will now need to be processed at the regional center.
In an age of largely "visa free" / "visa waived" travel it makes sense to consolidate the facilities.
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alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| working holiday visas (as few as they were) |
Koreans have to enter a lottery to get a working holiday visa to Canada (last time a friend got one last year) there are obviously more than a "few".
| Quote: |
| Immigration applications were largely done in Canada by the various offices of the CIC and not processed locally. They were just left in a box to be sent with the consular mail or sent directly by the applicant. |
But you actually took them to the embassy, the person there would often give any paperwork you submitted a once over and make sure you included everything you needed.
They haven't actually shifted everything to Manila if you actually read the notice.
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| All permanent resident applications previously submitted to the visa office in Seoul will now be processed in Manila. |
All new applications for PR have to be mailed to Canada. What does this do?
1-forces people to pay international postage to send documents
2-opens up the process to a third party which could potentially lose/delay documents
3-removes any front facing staff from interacting with the person trying to make an application
New Temporary residence visas are being processed online, and Koreans must need them for something or else they wouldn't be talking about them. This is less of a big deal. if PR applications were being done online that would also not be an issue (no reason you couldn't scan things for this and attach them to the application) |
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michpottier
Joined: 03 May 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 9:01 am Post subject: |
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The only process parts of visas in canada, the final decision and processing is done in the country of origin. Even then it only applies to PR, where a canadian citizen sponsoring a spouse etc. has to be vetted, the person recieving the visa is always processed in their country of residence.
They will process any visas that are already in the system in seoul, but they stopped accepting any more applications.
According to their last audit they had a robust number of visa applicants. Considering there are around 20000 canadians in korea at any given time, they are guaranteed to have a hefty number of PR visa applications every year. This does not only apply to koreans. If a canadian marries an american and they have lived in korea for a year or longer, they have to have their visa processed in korea.
I guess if you look at the other side of the coin, korea has 4 consualtes and embassies in canada that provide the full range of visa services, and i am sure they don't spend 8 million dollars for each annually. Also it only takes the korean consualtes a few weeks to process spousal, student, or teaching visas etc. ( even faster if you can go ther in person to pick it up) While the canadian embassy takes months or years. |
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alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| The only process parts of visas in canada, the final decision and processing is done in the country of origin. Even then it only applies to PR, where a canadian citizen sponsoring a spouse etc. has to be vetted, the person recieving the visa is always processed in their country of residence. |
The 2 classes of PR all require that the applicant mail them to Canada rather than take them to the embassy for processing. If they were going to process or vette them in Seoul, why have the applicant mail them to Canada?
It adds to the cost and time involved with an already expensive and lengthy visa application.
| Quote: |
| They will process any visas that are already in the system in seoul, |
Only temporary visas. Any existing PRs are being sent to Manila. |
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chungbukdo
Joined: 22 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Will I be able to get a marriage document certifying I'm not presently married to someone, that I can bring to the Korean embassy? I don't know what area that would fall under |
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chungbukdo
Joined: 22 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:19 pm Post subject: Re: Canadian Embassy in Seoul no longer has Immigration sect |
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| ttompatz wrote: |
| michpottier wrote: |
Well if you look on the Canadian Embassy's website in Seoul, they have just axed their entire immigration section as of January 28th, 2013. So if you need a student visa, temp visa, or a permanent residence visa for anyone, it can no longer be done in Korea. They shifted everything to Manila for some reason. They say it will save money and make things more efficient, but do not say how. My guess it will take longer to get anything done, especially if Korean documents are involved.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/notices/2013-01-28.asp
This leaves me to wonder what exactly they are doing in the huge building in central Seoul? If they are not processing immigration documents, what are they doing with their time. Do we really need an eight floor building to replace lost passports and and provide notarization? Are they really needed to 'build' business relationships or spread Canadian culture and relations?
According to the Embassy's last audit (2007)their were only around 20 Canadians working there and around 60 Koreans (locals). Their operating budget was over $8,000,000 annually.
http://www.international.gc.ca/about-a_propos/oig-big/2007/Seoul.aspx?lang=eng&view=d
To put that into perspective the Canadian embassy hires around the same amount of Canadians as a large Hagwon. Most of the other major embassies provide the full range of services and actually hire a lot of their own citizens and provide visas for them. The Canadian embassy does not provide visas except to the 'diplomats'. Seems like a real shame to me, as they could have replaced a lot of those local hires with Canadians, especially since there is a multitude of Canadians with relevant education in the country teaching. |
AS much as I dislike the service provided by the Canadian Embassy in Seoul and have long considered it substandard at best.. in their defense....
The immigration center / visa section of the consular office at the embassy in Seoul had no direct involvement with Canadians or, for the most part, Koreans either.
Immigration applications were largely done in Canada by the various offices of the CIC and not processed locally. They were just left in a box to be sent with the consular mail or sent directly by the applicant.
Koreans don't need TRVs to come as tourists.
Proper student visas (more than 6 months) and working holiday visas (as few as they were) for Koreans will now be processed at the regional center based in Manila.
Other nationals who actually need a TRV who would have been seeking TRVs in Korea (very few each year) will now need to be processed at the regional center.
In an age of largely "visa free" / "visa waived" travel it makes sense to consolidate the facilities.
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sorry for quoting your whole post, I'm on a small tablet. But my partner told me there are so many requests for working tourist visas, to get one they only have two intakes per year and many people are turned away at random, simply because there are more applicants than they think they can handle.
It kind of irks me that immigration offices make their own law. If Canadians elect political representatives that implement a visa system with no quotas, then an office should not be able to enforce an arbitrary quota. Regardless of ones view on whether there should be more or less immigrants, I think we can agree it should be decided by the people and their representatives, not the immigration offices themselves. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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| chungbukdo wrote: |
| Will I be able to get a marriage document certifying I'm not presently married to someone, that I can bring to the Korean embassy? I don't know what area that would fall under |
Consular services for Canadians abroad were NOT affected.
They are still just as expensive and the services are still just as poor as they always were.
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alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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working holiday visas aren't an arbitrary quota. Both countries offer the same amount to each other, that's how it works. The difference is that very few, if anyone, from Canada would want to get a working holiday visa to come to Korea.
Most people who come can already stay 6 months on their passport, and if they have an education they can get an E1/2 to work.
Koreans though often want to go to Canada to work and study. They'll live 3 or 4 to an apartment to keep rent low and making $10-$12 an hour even at low end retail/food court jobs is quite a step up compared to similar work in Korea.
I don't know what the limit is, but Korea and Japan used to have a 1000 visa limit each direction, during the world cup they increased it to something like 2200 or 2500. I don't know if they reduced it after that or left it at that level. |
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chungbukdo
Joined: 22 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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Oh thanks I did not know that, that is a really small number.
And yeah that sounds like the Korean way to do things, the hard uncomfortable way.
My girl just wanted to come to Alberta to bartend while I drive a haul truck, or maybe bartend in whistler. She would probably make more money than me. |
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TL
Joined: 30 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Can applications for spousal visas still be obtained from the embassy after the closure? |
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robot
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| Do they still renew passports? I've got to get mine done pronto as I've got a vacation coming up. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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robot
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Great, thx! |
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