Here is the situation…
the national immigration has made a mistake twice.
My girlfriend (the Moroccan) had her arc revoked (whilst still in use and she just wanted to change her address) because they made a mistake on their side, they say they had given her an arc when her resident visa expired, but in fact she made her arc when the resident visa was still in-date. They say her resident visa expired (March) which the date of revoking her arc was (April). They just gave her a month extension of stay due to the coronavirus and that’s all. She was in tears because it was all of a sudden and she has to leave the country and go through the whole process again. She has no embassy or “representative office” here. So it has made things twice as worse. She had a student arc and she was planning to study longer.
Now the problem here is, her friend is in the exact same situation (they did the whole arc process exactly the same way except trying to change residency address since my girlfriend only moved in with me)and she went to the immigration agency recently, they said however she could extend her arc and her resident visa has no connection to her student arc.
So essentially my girlfriend lost her arc, they took it, probably shredded.
Could anyone advise us what we could do and what the **** is going on?
Yes, she had a student arc and it was due to expire June 4th.
Students can renew their arc every semester before it expires. But the immigration office downright took her arc away and says it was their mistake to ever issue it. Despite her friend in the exact same circumstances can renew her arc with no problem and not have the arc revoked.
Not at all, they just said it was an error on their part. This made no sense yet they insisted that the system (one of their staff) made a mistake and they can’t do anything but take the arc away.
1.She came more than a year ago, on a tourist visa first, she got it from France, then she changed it to a student visa from HK to study mandarin in Taiwan [dates of acquiring the visa: France In december 2018/ the visa to study mandarin with extension by the end of March 2019] (SHE ARRIVED FOR FIRST TIME IN TAIWAN IN FEBRUARY 2019)
2. She changed to a resident visa (in November 2019) to obtain an arc in Taiwan (in December 2019)that she’s renewing every 3 months within some documents from NTNU.
The ARC has 2 conditions that she must fulfill (good attendance at university and study record )
she wants to continue studying but they already took her arc, asking her to leave Taiwan on July 4th and go through the whole process again which is (HK to ask for a visa to study Chinese with extension -> do the extension 2 times “every 2 months”—> change it to a resident visa to finally get another ARC)
…
the biggest problem is she’s the only one in this situation!: we’ve been asking around and even her friend has the same situation with the same visa and didn’t have the same issue and nobody took from her her ARC)
4.She applied for an address change on May 7th
3.expires on June 4th and got it on March, but the arc has been taken away and the stamp for a short stay until July has been made.
5.She is a language student
6.She is in Taipei living with me.
7. She wanted to enroll for the next semester but since they took away her ARC and asking her to go to HK and do everything on more time so she is waiting to see what’s going on first.
Did she first come in Taiwan in Feb 2019 on tourist visa, then got a student visa in HK by the end of March 2019? Then she extended it 2 or 3 times, and got a resident visa and ARC in November and December 2019? Though iirc, visitor visa is up to 180days. When did she get a student visa in HK?
Her ARC was/is till June 4, and she got an automatic extension of 1 month, so it seems her ARC is not revoked, but was she said her ARC is invalid?
Yes exactly first one in February on tourist visa then got a visa to study Chinese on March (not a student visa its very different )
she got the resident visa by the end of November then applied for An ARC that she got by the beginning of December
And no; a visitor visa for her country (Morocco )its only for 30 days
they took her ARC at the immigration and said, were sorry we made a mistake we shouldn’t give you this ARC at all (the reason is her resident visa there is something saying valid to March )
Her friend went to apply for a month extension due to the covid;. All the foreigners can overstay to 2 months then she was suprised by the agent saying to her to not lose her ARC and that she can still apply for an ARC without any complication. As I said before their cases are identicals: they came here together and have been applying together almost same time and definitely the same documents
Maybe her 30 days time limit was over, until she changed it to a student-visa (so she maybe overstayed ?).
How did she change her Visa anyway in March 2019 ?
Did she have to leave Taiwan and apply for the new Visa from an outside country ?
PS
I am not an expert on this subject, but I find it very strange that people again and again are writing student-visa, working-visa etc.
There is just a visitor-visa, single or multiple, valid different days depending on which country.
You apply for such a visitor-visa, and based on your purpose, after a waiting time of 4 months, your personal ARC will be issued based on your personal purpose (work, study, family).
Or am I completely wrong here and me just writing bullshit ?
I’ve been here since August of 2002, and I’m still confused about the visa thing. Maybe we should call it Schrödinger’s Visa. Or maybe it’s a Hegelian thing, in which a thesis visa and an antithesis visa result in a synthesis visa. Or maybe it’s just old-fashioned alchemy, or even –shudder– witchcraft.
This rule applies only to visa free entry or tourist visas, I believe. Not to ARC holders. If your ARC expires, you still have to renew it, it doesn’t just get extended by 1 or 2 months due to Covid.
https://visaguide.world/asia/taiwan-visa/student/ get this then apply for ARC is I guess more correct? There is definitely a forum to fill out that will let u stay in the country to study if you show you have been enrolled in Chinese classes for like 4 months. Whatever that is called that is what people are referring to as a “student visa”