Eligibility for NWOHR passport+TARC if no active household registration at time of birth

[Hayashi]

Returning to the fundamental issue of my case – the status of my father’s HHR at the time of my birth. There may be a problem.

@Lain

@Hayashi

Again, to drive home the point – do I still qualify under AF384 if the HHR was expired at the time of my birth and remained expired until and after my father’s death ?

Yes.

I’m not sure about this anymore.

@Lain

The line that tando quotes basically says “born overseas to an ROC citizen who has had household registration.”

The key question is whether or not the status of the HHR, at the time of birth of the descendant, is important.

The optimistic line of reasoning laid out in our earlier discussion argues that expiry of the parent’s HHR at the time of the descendant’s birth does not matter for the descendant’s TARC application:

@Lain

The important part is having a household (now or in the past) in Taiwan. The fact that HHRs “deactivate” is just, for lack of better words, a bureaucratic thing.

From recent memory, I think @multipass situation should be similar to yours, who has received his TARC through his deceased ROC parent (and is over 20); @paperclip’s application was also based on her deceased parent’s HHR, though she was younger than 20. I think for all of their applications (but you can ask them and make sure), since they were born overseas after some time, their ROC parent’s HHR has already expired.

Unfortunately, I just discovered by re-reading the old threads that in @multipass’s situation, the NIA appeared to require proof that the deceased parent’s HHR was active at the time of birth.

Here’s the quote from @multipass’s thread (cue depressing music here):

@multipass

The National Immigration Agency told me that the key aspect of this part of this option for applying is that your parent had an active household registration at the time you were born overseas. So in my case I needed to provide them an authentic copy of my mom’s household registration (inactive), which shows it was active during the date I was born. My mom has already passed away

This unfortunately seems to match with my case:

1. Deceased ROC parent
2. HHR currently inactive
3. Descendant born overseas
4. Need to prove HHR was active during the date descendant was born.

And @paperclip’s case also relied on an active, non-expired HHR, as stated above:

@paperclip

my parent’s HHR was not expired at time of application. Despite being born overseas, my parent returned to Taiwan annually, so the HHR was active (until death).

Please, prove me wrong. Do I still have a chance at a TARC (under AF384) if my father’s HHR was inactive (i.e. expired automatically due to long overseas residence) at the date I was born? @multipass, could you perhaps clarify what exactly you had to prove about your HHR to get your TARC application approved? When you say you had to prove your mother’s HHR was “active” at the time of your birth, does “active” mean “not expired”?

@Lain

A household registration is completely cancelled if and only if the citizen gives up his ROC nationality (as far as I’m aware). But this doesn’t invalidate any claims of yours that are based on having an HHR in the past, which your father also fulfills, and which satisfies the requirement that tando pointed out.

I really want that to be true. But I’m not sure that we have seen proof of such a case (born to overseas ROC national with expired HHR) having successfully gone through.

If I attempt to understand the law that tando quoted, it states that these persons are eligible for a TARC (through AF384, though that’s not stated on the page):

@tando

誰可以辦
(三) 居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民 在國外出生之子女，年齡在二十歲以上。

Now, what is the exact meaning of 居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民? Based on @multipass’s quote above, it seems the NIA took a hardline stance and said that the key aspect was proof that the HHR was active at the time of the overseas birth of the descendant.

Also from @Lain’s thread we see:

@Lain

The goverment admits that the wording of “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生之子女” is unclear, and there is a plan to change it into “在國外出生，出生時其父或母為居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民” (https://www.moi.gov.tw/files/Act_file/入出國及移民法部分條文修正草案總說明及條文對照表.pdf )

Again, implying that active status of HHR a time of birth seems to be required.

Can anyone point to evidence that an inactive HHR at time of birth can be used / has successfully been used for an AF384-based TARC?

If not, then AF384 might not be an option for me.

I think the only glimmer of hope is this part of @tando’s post:

@tando

Article 3 of Immigration Act
4. Nationals with registered permanent residence in the Taiwan Area:
Nationals who have the nationality of the State, are residing in the Taiwan Areas currently or originally, and have not lost personal identification as people of the Taiwan Area in accordance with the Act Governing Relations between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area.

Because of my limited Chinese ability I need time to work through the Chinese wording of the text to see if it really implies the “or originally” as stated in the English translation.

But even if “originally” having had HHR (i.e. HHR was expired at time of birth) still qualifies the applicant legally for an AF384-based TARC, the unfortunate fact remains that, as I understand, the NIA required @multipass to prove that the HHR was active at the time of birth, taking a stricter view of the law. So it could be an uphill battle to argue to the NIA that AF384 does not require HHR active at time of birth, but only requires having “originally” had an HHR. To make such a challenging legal argument to the NIA, I would probably go with an immigration lawyer like the one @tando linked to above (thanks @tando for the link to the Taiwanese immigration laywer).

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts would be appreciated!