Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Vingilot]

Maybe someone can enlighten me. I've been working in Korea since October 2003. When my first year was up, I wanted to come back and work, however I wanted to go back home for Thanksgiving at the end of November and stay for Christmas, coming back on New Years. I asked my boss if I could stay on an extra month and a half and she said ok and that she would take care of it. Now, I worked for this month with no problems until I went to the airport, and immigration asked me why I had overstayed, took my alien card, and I flew off.

Apparently I was not ok to come back. My boss had to beg immigration to let me back in, which they eventually did in the end of January 2004. I worked for another year, and decided to take another job when my contract expired. I was still waiting for my new school to take care of my paperwork about a week after my visa expired, who had assured me it was no problem. But he then came to me and said I was banned from working in Korea for 7 years and I had to leave. Suffice to say I broke down.

I left Korea as soon as possible after this. I looked for a job in Japan, which is where I am today. But I am just curious, am I really banned from Korea for 7 years? This seems like a very harsh penalty, and I was wondering if I understood them correctly. I realize that I was very stupid, but I had assumed my schools had known what they were doing. Could anyone give me a little insight, am I really done teaching in Korea?

[Grotto]

Interesting question to be asking a bunch of English teachers in Korea.

Perhaps you should contact Korean immigration and check your status to make sure exactly where you stand!

[I-am-me]

There is another option: Join the US Military!!! Be All You Can Be!!!Come Back On Uncle Sam's Expense!

[Zyzyfer]

That sucks. I know hindsight is 20/20, but if anyone else gets in a similar situation regarding overstaying when they go to the airport/ferry terminal to leave, it's recommendable to give immigration there a phone number for your boss, so they can work it out and you're not catching all of the flak for it. This happened to me after my first year (we went to immigration and filled everything out, but they didn't mark anything on our ARCs!), and we were shocked to be accused of illegally overstaying, since we had sat in immigration all morning to make everything legit, so we let them work it out. I haven't had any problems at all since, and I'm very careful to abide by the date on the ARC now.

[Big Mac]

I guess it's a lesson learned: don't trust your boss to do anything for you when it comes to immigration. It's your responsibility to make sure you are legal. I guess you're paying the consequences.

[buymybook]

[Big Mac]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Big Mac]

[Vingilot]

Yeah, I was wondering if they wouldn`t issue me another E-2 visa because I was illegally in the country at the time. I don`t suppose there is a way to contact Korean Immigration through email and make an inquiry, is there?

[Mills]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[pet lover]

The places on the back are for if you renew your visa because you stay at the same place of employment. In that case, they'll write the new expiration date on the back of your ARC in the first of the boxes.

[prairieboy]

Hate to say this, but you and your boss should have known that you'd have needed to have your visa extended.

You could have had it done in the month before it was to expire and you could have extended it for one year to cover your next contract. You then could have left the country on your extended vacation and come back with no problems. You'd only have had to do another extension before your second period of stay would have expired.

Live and learn but this is something that you could search on this board and find lots of threads of people who had similar problems or had asked the question about the visa expiry date and staying past it.

Good luck to you.

[Mills]