Forthcoming Changes & Amendments to Immigration Act

Hi Forumosa, I’ve been reading through the forums on and off over the past year and seems like one of the biggest gripes (including my own) about Taiwan is about the archaic Immigration Act, even more so when it comes to citizenship issues and related. We can all agree that Taiwan does not have the most friendly immigration policy for either outright foreigners or even overseas Taiwanese who want to return to Taiwan.

I find myself in the latter category: son of Taiwanese mother, in my 20s, global, Master’s Degree, various entrepreneurial companies, interest in returning back to Taiwan. And I know there are many other members on this forum who have similar backgrounds and are equally or more qualified, and clearly Taiwan could benefit from an influx of people like us, our skills, our cash. Singapore wants people like us, Hong Kong opens the doors. Taiwan closes it despite having a lack of domestic professionals, an aging population with continually declining birth rate, and an overall declining competitiveness relative to elsewhere in Asia.

Anybody who is born to a Polish mother or a Japanese mother or a Brazilian mother or whomever automatically acquires the citizenship of their mother at birth. Still Taiwan, as “advanced” as it portrays itself to be, continues this outdated requirement of making us reside in Taiwan for 1 yr (365 days), 2 yrs (540 days), 5 yrs (915 days). The result? People who otherwise could and would contribute to the land of their heritage don’t. Taiwan loses all the potential benefits.

Yesterday I went to the National Immigration Agency in Taipei to inquire further about the matter. As always, it seems that everybody there has no real idea about anything going on in the “big picture”, but I did get a few people to acknowledge that there currently the Immigration Act is under review and that might be able to expect some changes in the next two or three years. A few articles online seems to confirm that the ball is in motion and this matter is being discussed at higher levels:

My questions to everyone on Forumosa are:

  1. Do you believe that the situation is finally changing or is this just more of the same so Taiwanese Ministers can look like they are doing something?
  2. Has anybody heard about what changes that the MOI and NIA are considering to the Immigration Act? That Singapore and Hong Kong were invited to the recent invent here seems to be a very good sign.
  3. Does anybody have any idea what changes might take place regarding individuals born overseas to a Taiwanese parent? I’ve heard there is some serious talk about completely removing the residency requirements for these people to be able to attain an ID Card and Household Registration.
  4. Does anybody have any intuition as to how long this process might actually take to go through the Taiwanese legislature?

A final point:

Seems like there are many of us in the same boat. Is there no way that we can collectively meet with lawmakers involved with this issue to try to influence the policy discussions? Seems like if we join together and make our case we should at least be able to get an audience with some decision makers?

Not to take away from your excellent post but I don’t think lawmakers in general will be interested to meet people like us who don’t have the vote. There are a few lawmakers that are working and interested in this issue but that’s about it.
There are also different opinions among the Ministers (who change very regularly in Taiwan), the current economics Minister seems to be very much for liberalisation of immigration, it’s getting the other Ministries on board that proves difficult.

This is a thread I started on this topic: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 6&t=112828

The current draft amendment does away with the residency requirements for establishing household registration. It has been submitted by the Executive Yuan/Interior Ministry to the Legislative Yuan, but has been awaiting committee approval for the past few months.

I am more curious about the requirement that applicants for naturalization must abandon their previous citizenships (to the extent that their countries allow this). There was some noise about changing this a few months ago, though some government resistance to the idea was also noted.

Another issue that I would like to see addressed is the absence of any sort of retirement residency visa.

I am pessimistic about the chance of reform, but this is not based on any direct knowledge on my part, just a general sense that certain elements of the government would resist even very small moves away from a Chinese ethno-national identity. They’ll throw the door wide open for Chinese from China, though.

CHanges have been made over the years, and in the direction of liberalization, so it’s reasonable to be optimistic.

Late to this discussion, but I am in a similar situation to you myoungabr2.

Here is a link to a petition I found on another forum. I believe this is the same proposal gnaij is referring to. (edit,oops, just saw on another thread gnaij already linked to it! and that myoungabr2 is actually the organizer of the petition!! … like I said, late to the party… :blush: )

I hope this goes thru some time soon, my situation requires me to travel in the region fairly regularly, making it difficult for me to spend 183 days a year in Taiwan.
If this does go thru, then people like us will have the right to vote, and support those who helped to change the law!

change.org/petitions/taiwan- … 3%E8%99%9F

change.org/search?utf8=%E2%9 … +Committee