I hope someone else answers this, because I don’t live in Taiwan and I don’t have any experience with this myself. My only limited knowledge comes from some questions I asked a couple of years ago here on the forum, at Eligibility for NWOHR passport+TARC if no active household registration at time of birth .
First, a question about your case. You said:
What exactly do you mean by “at that time”? Did your grandparents ever have an active HHR?
Anyway, about your case, I think that I understood the following:
- Parents of mother had HHR in the past (did I understand right?)
- Parents of mother deactivated HHR before mother’s birth (did I understand right?)
- Mother was born to Taiwanese parents without HHR at time of birth (did I understand right?)
- Mother has NWOHR passport
- Mother now applied for TARC under AF384
- NIA says that due to #2 and #3, mother does not qualify under AF384
However, I asked this specific question earlier:
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?
Eligibility for NWOHR passport+TARC if no active household registration at time of birth - #71 by Hayashi
To which @multipass answered:
I don’t think I have evidence handy, but I do believe I’ve heard of this case succeeding.
Eligibility for NWOHR passport+TARC if no active household registration at time of birth - #72 by multipass
As for an immigration laywer, there was an old link given by @tando here, but unfortunately it seems no longer to be active:
You maybe can try searching on the web using some keywords as @tando described here: Recommendation for company that can do my Taiwanese passport paperwork - #4 by tando . It looks like most companies who can help in this matter will require the communication to be done in Chinese.
I wish you luck and hope you will share any information you can find out about how to proceed.