I would like to know what the penalties are for overstaying your visa here in Taiwan. I have a friend (he is a US citizen) who has been in Taiwan illegally for the past 12 months. Do you know what will happen when he tries to leave the country? Any recommendations? Thank you very much in advance.
A large fine, stamp in the passport stating that he is not allowed to return for a set period of time, maybe five years and plenty of questions in regard to how he has been supporting himself, with tax related queries thereon as well.
He is likely to be in for a rough time, and i would suggest that he gets this resolved before he tries to leave, otherwise he might not make his flight.
A large fine, stamp in the passport stating that he is not allowed to return for a set period of time, maybe five years and plenty of questions in regard to how he has been supporting himself, with tax related queries thereon as well.
He is likely to be in for a rough time, and i would suggest that he gets this resolved before he tries to leave, otherwise he might not make his flight.
If he has an (expired) ARC there should be no fine. He should go to the foreign affairs police though to get a deportation stamp on his passport. Otherwise they will stop him at the airport and may detain him until things are cleared.
He should deny that he has been working for the past 12 months. Otherwise he will be out for five years. Simply overstaying will get him blacklisted and he will not be allowed to apply to return for a year. This last point is crucial. They don’t have to let your friend back in after a year (or ever). He simply has the right to apply to come back in. However, unless he has a good reason for coming back (a wife, children) he will almost certainly be denied. This is the new policy.
I have a friend who has a rash on his scrotum. It’s not me, of course, but being a pal, I thought that I’d write to this public forum and ask for advice for him… HA!
You know, after all these years here, I just love to hear the, “I overstayed my visa; what do I do?” It reaffirms my feeling that there are indeed people out there that have no fucking clue. “But I didn’t need a visa when I went to Canada…”
Overstay for 12 months? “Oh, sorry Mr. Officer person. I forgot.” Yeah, right.
Wow. Tell your “friend” to pull his head out of his ass and think about how to travel and live in a foreign country responsibly.
As far as I am concerned, your “friend” can leave, stay, go to jail, get the banned stamp…whatever. I mean really; who cares? This person didn’t care about breaking the law (don’t try to tell me that he was confused about the rules for a YEAR), so screw him.
If you can’t adhere to the basic rules of protocol to stay in this country or any other, then who should pity you?
And by the way, why is it there are so many wankers asking questions that they could find the answer to on this site by just doing a search? How many fucking times are we going to have to see a thread on “Wee, wee, wee! I overstayed my visa!” Shit, this must be about the 10th one. God people are dumb sometimes.
Attaboy, let it all out. You are right of course. Original poster: Tell your friend he’s a total fuckwit and would be unlikely to follow or even understand any advice we could give him anyway.
Crackpot seems to be implying that there is no “friend”, but that it’s actually myself who has overstayed for 12 months. Well, I’ve only been in Taiwan for 2 weeks. If you don’t have any info to give or if the thread doesn’t interest you, then don’t read it, just skip it, idiot. It’s dumb ass wankers like yourself that go around condemning and criticizing other peoples actions that shouldn’t be here. If you don’t give a shit, fine, we don’t need to hear all your crap. But anyway Crackpot, you can stick your little morality and ethics up your big <*** profanity >. We really don’t give a < profanity ***> about what you think. < *** death curse ***> 
There is more wisdom to Crackpot’s remarks than may meet the eyes on first reading.
Also, since the issue of “visa overstay” is somewhat serious, I would suggest that the original poster (“Buzz”) have the person involved make his/her own inquiries on the internet and elsewhere. If that person is interested in solving this problem, then it is up to him/her to investigate all possible solutions personally, and vigorously.
In reality, I doubt that there is anything to argue about. A legal professional would charge you more than NT$ 50,000 to even begin the case. Does the overstayer spoken of here have that kind of money? (Of course, I have met some who do.) And, I must ask, are there serious extenuating circumstances? At any rate, if such financial resources are not available, what is there to discuss???
The sooner a quick exit is made from the country, the better. As far as coming back . . . . . that is no doubt impossible for the short term. Maybe an extended stay in Thailand or the Fiji Islands would be nice . . . . .
I am currently involved in three complicated overstay situations in Taiwan, all of which are already in court. The first is a Malaysian gentleman, the second is a Filipino lady, and the third is an overseas Chinese “refugee” from northern Thailand. There are serious extenuating circumstances in each case. I not only have to fight the existing ROC Immigration Law regulatory framework, but I also have to fight concurrent deportation orders, and detention orders. In other words, keeping these people out of jail is a big priority for me.
It is all very exhausting. The judges want the facts, and the legal details. There is a lot of attention paid to procedural details, both in the filing of the suit and the presentation in court. I must say, I am curious, does Buzz’s friend really want to go through all of this wrangling (and expense) just to tell the judge “I was careless and forgot to renew my visa?” That is not a legal argument, so it wouldn’t mean anything to a judge. What could one possibly hope to win??
In my opinion, all the overstay cases I am involved in now have one thing in common, i.e. if resolved successfully, they will become important precedents for the foreign community. If Buzz’s friend’s situation falls in a similar category, I would be happy to hear more details about it.
Buzz, all of two weeks old, wants us to feel compassion for someone who either didn’t follow the rules or could not. If there are special circumstances, as Richard points out, that is one thing. Did your friend have something that prevented him from leaving? If not ,then he or she will not get much sympathy for those of us who have been years in the country and have made it part of our condition of living here to keep our visa in order.
By the way, as Richard asks: Why are you asking for help and not the person in question?
Richard, I was under the impression that one of the things that makes your work so difficult is the fact that the courts here do not adhere to the concept of precedent and treat each case on its own merits, irrespective of how many times the same type of case has passed through the system.
Has the situation changed?
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]Buzz, all of two weeks old, wants us to feel compassion for someone who either didn’t follow the rules or could not. If there are special circumstances, as Richard points out, that is one thing. Did your friend have something that prevented him from leaving? If not ,then he or she will not get much sympathy for those of us who have been years in the country and have made it part of our condition of living here to keep our visa in order.
By the way, as Richard asks: Why are you asking for help and not the person in question?[/quote]
I also know someone who overstayed a year - maybe it’s the same person. If so, he’s not asking for help because he’s so clueless I doubt he realizes there’s a problem. The guy I know blithely goes around telling new acquaintances, especially young women from Europe, that he doesn’t have a visa. They look at him with eyes wide with admiration, sure that he is able to stay because he’s an American. It’s a nice way to get laid, but otherwise the guy is just short of being considered educably mentally retarded.
To an extent this is true, however I agree with Hartzell in feeling that having some good precedent is a step in the right direction when dealing with the administrative agencies.
I admire his work in human rights and have spoken to him about this.
unlikely, since the original post by buzz was 2002, so your acquaintence would now be a 3 year overstayer.
Awesome. The guy’s turned lemons into lemonade. That’s an interesting pick-up line: “I’m such a rebel, I overstayed my visa. Wanna go to that love hotel?” Now we know how to get both Taiwanese girls (Excuse me, do you speak English?) and European girls in Taiwan into the sack.
But I have to wonder why European honeys get so turned on by guys who overstay their visas. Is it because they assume he’s American? No, that can’t be it. A rebel? Maybe. Or maybe it isn’t even true and our search for the Holy Grail of picking up Europeans isn’t yet over.
Hope I didn’t spoil the otherwise serious nature of this thread in particular and forum in general with my adolescent comments.