hankyoreh

A 37-year-old Iranian has feet frustrated lately, because his two-year effort to get a Korean passport has made little progress. He says he has contacted the Korea immigration bureau on many occasions only to be told he needs to "wait and see."

He came here 14 years ago and married a Korean woman, meaning he should have no problem in acquiring citizenship. "I think if I get citizenship I will be treated equally with other South Koreans at work," he said. "I didn't know it would be so tough to get it."

Park Jang-myeon, a 55-year-old ethnic Korean who came from China, filed a request to get South Korean nationality. He thought that it would be easy since his mother was South Korean herself but it was one and a half years before he finally got a chance to have a citizenship test at the Justice Ministry. Unfortunately, he failed the test last January and now waits for another chance, not knowing when that will be. He said the ministry informed him of the last test date only a week ahead of time.

There are four ways for foreigners to become South Korean citizens. First, persons over 20 years old who have resided in Korea for over 5 years and are economically independent may take government tests, including a Korean language exam. Second, in case of ethnic Koreans living overseas, at least one of their parents should re-obtain or "restore" South Korean nationality before their sons or daughters can take a qualification test. Third, those who get married to a Korean and live here for more than two years can become naturalized without taking any tests at all. Finally, those who make "special contributions" to Korea may be granted citizenship.

However, the reality is not as easy as it sounds. It usually takes 1-2 years to get citizenshp after an elligible foreigner filed an application. Currently around 45,000 foreigners are waiting in line to be Koreans.

On March 23, an office of the Justice Ministry in Pyeongchon, Gyeonggi Province was flooded with foreign residents demanding to know whether their requests for naturalization were accepted.

Ryu Yeong-nam, a 73-year-old female who came from China, said, "I came here to confirm myself where my request stands since the ministry has not contacted me." The only answer that he got was "there are too many people waiting and so wait some more."

They are wondering why it takes so long to get naturalized. But the reason is simple: Too many people want to become South Korean, but there are too few officials to handle their applications.

The number of citizenship applications stood at 50,000 in 2005, compared with 24,000 in 2002. But there are only 8 people in the Justice Ministry who work in the naturalization office, and only five of them are fully assigned to the job. They have to deal with around 400 applications a week while every week sees an additional 600 cases.

Considering the heavy workload, it is no wonder applicants complain about poor quality of administrative services. The Hankyreh, called 20 times over a period of four days to reach the naturalization information office but got nowhere.

Cha Gyu-geun, a Justice Ministry official working in the naturalization department, said the inconvenience is inevitable due to lack of staff and the ministry is currently in talks with related government agencies to raise the number of needed staff.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]