Reasons for NWOHR getting TARC

Hey Lain,

First, sorry to hear about the difficulties. That’s really sad to hear.

Actually my first thought was like what paperclip said: if you have the living lineal relative, they probably want that person to establish a household registration. However, I also personally feel that you are right in pointing out that what the law actually states doesn’t seem to match what they’re saying.

Therefore, I would actually suggest getting a lawyer to help, if possible. The lawyer should be able to legally challenge them proficiently, or at worst explain to you whether or not the NIA people are right or wrong.

As for the "之子女“ part, this was at TECO. NIA didn’t try to reject me at all.

The only thing I can think of is maybe there is some hierarchy in application methods that maybe we didn’t notice, like forcing applicants to use AF353 if the parent is alive before being able to use AF384.

At the end of the day it’s difficult for me to provide good guidance for this because our cases differ in this key aspect of having the parent deceased or alive.

I think it would be best to check with a lawyer at this point, and/or re-read the application instructions to see if it has some hierarchy of application options where some must be used before others. At worst, if your mom can re-establish a household registration that is another method.

It may feel dejecting, but believe me, I would trade all of my nationalities to have my mom back, so at least there is also that silver lining.

I’ll be in Taiwan starting August 30 for around 9 days. If you think I can help in any way, let me know and I’ll see what I can do, but I think you pretty much did what I would have done.

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Quick question, @multipass, did your mother renounce her ROC citizenship to get the nationality of another country?

Thanks for the encouraging words. I’ll keep you updated, but it seems this is another key issue that the NIA raises. However, I’m still trying to challenge it.

Is anyone here who got a TARC on the basis of a deceased ROC parent, who had HHR in the past (and at the time of birth of the TARC holder), but renounced his ROC nationality later? If there is this kind of person here, my case should get through.

Hey @Lain,

My mom never renounced her ROC citizenship as far as I know, and never cancelled her household registration. She did get U.S. citizenship. I do think this could be another issue different from our cases, as you mentioned.

Reading through this case, it sounds like a lawyer may be most helpful, but otherwise having your mother reactivate household registration is the best route… it may save on lawyer fees and many people have done it, so it should be pretty simple. Is the only problem that she has not come to taiwan in a while so it’s expired? I believe if she stays in taiwan for a relatively short time, she can reactivate it.

My mom was a naturalized US citizen, but was also a ROC citizen with active household registration at her death.

I see, yeah that’s a different case then. Speaking of that, if your mother never cancelled her household registration, it’s completely crazy why you have been told that you couldn’t apply at all.

I’ll provide some updates on my situation. I came to better understand the complications of my case and possibly @newhere’s, but I’m also preparing to challenge the NIA’s reasoning.

Simply put, they say that because my mother renounced her citizenship, I cannot use her for any of those TARC conditions, i.e.:

  1. 有直系血親、配偶、兄弟姊妹或配偶之父母現在在臺灣地區設有戶籍。…
  2. 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。

For (1), she is simply not a citizen anymore so she can never fulfill “現在在臺灣地區設有戶籍”. For (2) it’s a little bit more complicated, and ultimately why I also think that the NIA’s reasoning is flawed.

First of all, the NIA says that (2) actually only applies to applicants whose parents have passed away, although this is nowhere written in the law. I went to another Immigration Agency today (where I’m not known yet), and there was one helpful guy who really listened to my case closely. He repeated that reason (2) is targeted at applicants with deceased parents, but also agreed that how the sentence is written doesn’t actually imply that. When I told him that, additionally, my mother has renounced her citizenship, he wondered whether my case could be similarly handled to those cases with deceased parents. The main similarity in both cases is that the ROC parent can only provide a 除戶謄本. A deceased person’s HHR gets “deactivated” for the lack of a better term, while the term for my mother’s HHR now seems to be “註銷”.

However, the assistant talked with the supervisors, and again they denied that my case could be accepted, arguing that with my mother being not an ROC citizen anymore, I simply would not fulfill (2); or more specific, my mother would not fulfil “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民”.

Now comes the part which I challenge. There are 2 main defects:

First of all, the formulation “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生之子女” does not include a time component. One could argue that “現在” is implied, but why does condition (1) explicitly include this while (2) doesn’t? The question would then be: Do I have to fulfil (2) at the time of birth or at the time of application?

Let’s say the NIA is wrong, that the wording only implies being child of an ROC citizen at the time of birth. Then my mother and I undoubtly fulfill this condition.

On the other hand, let’s say for whatever reason, a 現在 is implied there. I can still challenge that this is an arbitrary decision, but there is a deeper issue nested in there anyway: If the NIA argues that at the time of application, the applicant’s parent must be a “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民”, then the NIA breaks their own rules.

This is because the NIA accepts application’s of applicants with deceased parents. However, a deceased ROC national does not have a HHR; he is not a “(現在)設有戶籍國民”. A deceased national cannot have a HHR; it gets “deactivated.” This is also the reason that one can only get a 除戶謄本 for those nationals—their 戶籍 has already been 除’d, so to say.

In an essence, you cannot be dead and fulfill “設有戶籍” at the sime time. Unless the 設有戶籍 would imply “曾經設有戶籍”, and in this case, it should equally be handled for my mother’s HHR.

Of course I cannot be 100% sure about this part, but I asked the guy from the NIA today, and he agreed, a dead person actually does not have a HHR.

To sum it up, if you must fulfill (2) at the time of application, there are contradictions. Thus, the only other option is that (2) only applies to the time of birth.

I also have the following arguments (this is some info that I got why I was still writing this post):

  • 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)
    (This is on page 6, counted from the PDF) I will argue with this that the original wording already had this meaning, and the NIA implemented it incorrectly.
  • c.f. https://lis.ly.gov.tw/lgcgi/lgmeetimage?cfc9cfcacec7cfccc5cdd2cdcaca
    When the immigration law for NWOHRs initially got created, there is this explanation (on page 42, counted from the PDF): …然十八歲以上者,倘在臺已無直系血親等親屬,將無法申請在臺居留及定居。為使居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生之子女有返臺居留之管道,爰增訂修正條文…
    Which is something like “There is no way to apply for residence for NWOHRs who are older than 18 and who don’t have lineal relatives in Taiwan anymore. To give those […] children born overseas a method to apply for residence, the law has been revised.” (Or something like that, please correct me if I’m wrong.)

To be updated if I find more.

Thank you for reading.

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Speaking of that, if your mother never cancelled her household registration, it’s completely crazy why you have been told that you couldn’t apply at all.

Yea, that particular TECO staff person was wrong in her answers to me at first, and the phone and email people at NIA were not very useful. That said, this isn’t unique to the government. When I called the hospital system in the U.S. to ask about how I should schedule a physical for applying for a foreign visa, they seemed to think I was an illegal immigrant asking about a U.S. visa and they where really not helpful. Unfortunately I think with large organizations and complicated processes, the further away you get from the decision makers, the less accurate the advice is.

Thanks for providing details about your case, it’s very interesting. Do you mind if I ask if you have an ROC passport already? If you do have an ROC passport, you might ask them why you were able to acquire that via your relationship with your mom (assuming it happened after she renounced citizenship), but you can’t establish a household registration via that same relationship. It would be interesting to see what they say.

I was thinking about whether or not parents must apply on behalf of the child if the parents are still alive, and so I looked at the passport application instructions from TECO in San Francico again: https://www.roc-taiwan.org/ussfo/post/170.html

You can see they have phrasing like:

申請人須於民國69年(西元1980年)2月9日以後出生,才可依據新國籍法,因母親具有我國國籍而取得我國國籍,並申請我國護照。

This part is interesting, in my opinion. The way I’ve heard about this discussed in the past, I believe that is applied when you are born, not when you apply for the passport. So basically your mom had Taiwanese nationality, then gave birth to you and you therefore had Taiwanese nationality, then she cancelled hers, but you never cancelled yours. I know this is separate from household registration, but I’m just trying to think through the various angles. I’m not sure this would actually help, but it’s another thing to keep in mind during the discussions.

The main similarity in both cases is that the ROC parent can only provide a 除戶謄本. A deceased person’s HHR gets “deactivated” for the lack of a better term, while the term for my mother’s HHR now seems to be “註銷”.

First of all, the formulation “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生之子女” does not include a time component. One could argue that “現在” is implied, but why does condition (1) explicitly include this while (2) doesn’t? The question would then be: Do I have to fulfil (2) at the time of birth or at the time of application?

Yea, I think that’s correct. I should mention that when I went to NIA last year to ask them directly with my cousin with me, NIA told us we needed to update my mom’s 戶籍謄本 to indicate she passed away. That would be consistent with what they’re telling you, because it seems that they wanted me to do that before applying, otherwise I think they would have given me the answer you’re getting (if my mom’s death was not registered with the government in Taiwan, they would assume she was still alive). During that process they gave me the updated document titled 戶籍謄本 (除戶全部)which I used while applying. I checked my documents over again and this shows 遷出登記 showing she just moved away, which as you mentioned would produce a different case from 註銷.

Reading your post again, I guess another possibility could be that I was possibly wrong in my understanding and what I wrote, which I would feel really bad about. Maybe it’s possible I was wrong in understanding that it’s about the parent having a household registration at the time of the child’s birth (although that’s how it seems to be written in my opinion), but rather it’s about the parent having an existing household registration even if it’s inactive (with the implication of not cancelling it). That said, however, I thought checking to make sure my mom had a household registration when I was born was an important part of the process. However, maybe that could have been my cousin’s interpretation. At this point I can’t remember word-for-word which things NIA said in our conversation exactly since it was many months ago. Basically now I’m thoroughly confused.

If the NIA argues that at the time of application, the applicant’s parent must be a “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民”, then the NIA breaks their own rules.

This is because the NIA accepts application’s of applicants with deceased parents. However, a deceased ROC national does not have a HHR; he is not a “(現在)設有戶籍國民”. A deceased national cannot have a HHR; it gets “deactivated.” This is also the reason that one can only get a 除戶謄本 for those nationals—their 戶籍 has already been 除’d, so to say.

In an essence, you cannot be dead and fulfill “設有戶籍” at the sime time. Unless the 設有戶籍 would imply “曾經設有戶籍”, and in this case, it should equally be handled for my mother’s HHR.

Of course I cannot be 100% sure about this part, but I asked the guy from the NIA today, and he agreed, a dead person actually does not have a HHR.

I think the distinction of whether an inactive household registration still counts as some kind of valid household registration might be an important aspect here. It sounds like that guy said deceased people don’t have a HHR, but maybe he was just thinking of ‘active’ and not thinking of ‘inactive’ as still being an HHR?

c.f. https://lis.ly.gov.tw/lgcgi/lgmeetimage?cfc9cfcacec7cfccc5cdd2cdcaca
When the immigration law for NWOHRs initially got created, there is this explanation (on page 42, counted from the PDF): …然十八歲以上者,倘在臺已無直系血親等親屬,將無法申請在臺居留及定居。為使居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生隻子女有返臺居留之管道,爰增訂修正條文…

Now this is really interesting and a really good find. I don’t have time to read the whole thing at this moment, but I’ll try to read the summary details when I have time. At first glance it looks like very useful information. It’s interesting you can see 蕭美琴 participated in the discussion – I guess if worst comes to worst you could try writing to her office as a fellow person with parents from different nationalities to see if she can help draw attention to this situation.

At this point, I think you found a lot of good info. I hope you will continue challenge them to explain exactly why your case can’t be accepted based on the way the law is written and based on the purpose of the legal updates. I hope you are successful. If you still run into trouble, I think it’s worth getting a lawyer to take a look. In any case, you seem more than capable of handling this process, so let us know how it goes and if you need any other info.

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Did she renounce it after the birth?
IMHO her status at your birth is relevant. You just have to prove she had an active HHR back then. But the law is probably not very detailed to catch all possible situations and you have to push for it to be handled as a special case by higher officials who will give instructions for the local office how to handle this case.
There is a case where a Pakistani wanted to marry and was basically denied to get residency visa for himself or the wife. He kept pushing and eventually the case was handled when some higher up told the officials to quit their bullshit.

You should not loose the right to residency because your mother renounced her citizenship at a later time.

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I think you later explained why lain has a nationality and so a passport.

the handle to get a residency is higher than to get a passport, but the case is really similar to the case with deceased parents. They could simplify the regulations quite a bit more.

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Hey @tando,

I think you later explained why lain has a nationality and so a passport.

I think you can have nationality without applying for a passport right? I.e. before you apply for a passport for the first time, you legally have nationality but you don’t yet have a passport.

I think a passport is more of just a travel document, and isn’t what determines whether someone is a national or not. In the U.S., for example, most citizens do not have a passport.

The main reason I asked is because some other people on the forum asked about the TARC process before having a passport, so I wanted to confirm this and suggest another point that could be used to question NIA’s rejection.

@slawa The information on my and others’ cases is spread among different threads unfortunately, but yes, my mother was still a national at the time of birth, she did not renounce her citizenship yet.

I also already have an NWOHR passport, otherwise I wouldn’t have begun my TARC application at all.

@multipass If I understood you correctly, your mother’s 除戶謄本 now also states “註銷”? I wasn’t sure whether 除戶 by death uses the same term as by renunciation, but if that seems to be the case, then I guess it’s another proof why 設有戶籍 should apply to my mother.

But anyway, the law originally wanted (2) to mean at birth time.

Let’s see how this works out.

Sorry for the double post.

@multipass About 蕭美琴, how do you think would one go ahead and contact her?

No, sorry if that was confusing. It doesn’t say 註銷, it only says that she moved out, and it says that she passed away. It doesn’t have a 註銷 status.

As for 蕭美琴 and other lawmakers related to this, I think it’s worth letting them know that the law is not applied according to the intention of how it should be implemented (based on the part you quoted).

I would suggest her Facebook page, DM and timeline post https://m.facebook.com/Bikhim/

The about page also has other contact info https://m.facebook.com/Bikhim/about/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0

The offices of other lawmakers probably can also be contacted this way.

In general, yes, I want to clarify my opinion is that you should have the right to apply under the same method I used based on what I’ve read in the law, but I’m not a legal expert so I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that I could have missed something.

Could you tell me where in the document you saw 蕭美琴 participating? Sorry, I seem to be blind right now.

To be honest I haven’t read the whole thing yet (I’m on an exercise bike currently), but I saw her name while I was flipping through, for example page 14, third column from the left, bottom cell. I just assumed she would be a supporter of the law, but I haven’t truly read it yet. It looked to me like she was part of the group of people presenting the legislation.

Actually she’s mentioned on page 1, 主旨 section.

I guess my main point should be: you could try to find legislators related to the law update who might support your case if the law they passed is not being implemented correctly (it might be better to escalate within NIA first).

Hey @Lain, I have to correct myself: I took another look at the 戶籍騰本 and I did see 註記 in another section that I wasn’t checking carefully. So hopefully that also supports your line of reasoning about deceased people also having 註記 status just like someone who renounced or gave up citizenship/HHR (if I understood you correctly).

Thanks @multipass for verifying. However, just to make sure, would you mind telling me what exactly the wording is? Because my mother’s says “[Date]喪失國籍國民[Date]註戶籍” while you just wrote “註”. It might be a different term after all?

(I also found 蕭美琴 in the document now, thanks for the hint.)

(it might be better to escalate within NIA first)

Do you know how I’d go ahead and escalate within the NIA? (Like also the Chinese terms, etc.) I had a 署長信箱 written with the help of my cousin, but it’s just the same 承辦人 replying who always dismisses my application in the end.

FYI
訴願法

Administrative Appeal Act

completely agree. And my point is if you are a national you can get a passport, unless it is prohivited in a law. So, it is possible that someone can get a passport, but can not get a residency.

Hi @Lain,

Yea, I guess I was doubting myself yesterday because I didn’t feel a lot of support for the info I was providing, so I checked again after exercising and for some reason thought you had written 註記 rather than 註銷戶籍,and these do seem to be quite different at face value. I have to admit I’ve been travelling a lot lately so I’m a bit fatigued and was moving too quickly while multitasking.

Here’s a screenshot of the part I was referencing:

Screenshot_20190827-212513_1

Basically this last line in the 記事 section shows the recording of death.

I can show you in person if you want, but I don’t want to post the 戶籍騰本 online. You might be able to find examples via Google image search.

I checked it over again and I really didn’t see 註銷戶籍 anywhere, nor 喪失國籍國民 anywhere (I don’t think death results in this status). I do think this could be an important aspect of their decision, or at least an important aspect for you to consider while building your case.

I really hope people understand that I’m posting this to provide as much transparency as possible. I really hope this shouldn’t preclude you from the same rights, but I think it’s best for me to show as much info as possible to help you prepare the strongest case and do as much research as possible. I don’t want to only state my opinion of support and not provide detailed facts or possible reasons for the government’s statements to you, because I think it won’t prepare you as well for making your case. Most likely none of us are legal experts in this field, so we’re probably not well qualified to make a judgement on the law here.

As for escalating within NIA, I’m definitely not an expert in this part. Maybe Tando’s latest link could be helpful.

The 移民署 is part of the 內政部, so I guess you could try going that route, but I’m skeptical they would help.

I would really consider contacting the legislators (if reading that whole document shows they support what you’re saying), and getting a good lawyer. You could also try to talk to a legal professor with background in this field, or some other related professional.

Right, I think we’re clear on that. The reason I brought up the passport is because you could say to NIA, “if I could get the passport via my relationship with my parent, why not allow me to get an HHR via my relationship with the same parent?” However, I didn’t want to assume the passport was already issued.

The fact that Lain could get the passport despite the parent losing citizenship might support Lain’s point that the precedent for these laws is to apply them based on the relationship/status at time of birth (assuming the passport was issued after the parent’s citizenship was lost).

Thanks for clarifying again, @multipass. So there is indeed a difference between your 除戶騰本 and mine which kinda made the second part of my argument pointless, because the NIA will always argue that these are different circumstances.

However, I still believe that under this explanation

然十八歲以上者,倘在臺已無直系血親等親屬,將無法申請在臺居留及定居。為使居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生隻子女有返臺居留之管道,爰增訂修正條文

… and the fact that the requirement is being updated, I actually fulfill the requirement right now.

I contacted 蕭美琴 via Facebook, and it seems she quickly forwarded my question to an office she is connected with. However, it seems now that my case is still stuck, with the NIA simply insisting on their current view point. Not sure whether I made my point well, but the guy also said that the new wording, i.e.

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,或出生於父或母 死亡後,其父或母死 亡時為居住臺灣地 區設有戶籍國民。

… is more concerned about dropping the age requirement. Do I misunderstand this explanation? (It’s on page 6 and 7 in the PDF.)

依國籍法第二條規定, 出生時父或母為中華民 國國民,屬中華民國國 籍,如係以歸化方式取 得我國國籍後定居設籍 者,其在歸化國籍前在 國外出生之子女,因不 具我國國籍,並不適用該條規定,現行第一項 第四款用語易有誤導申 請人之虞;又為保障父 或母死亡時為居住臺灣 地區設有戶籍國民(以 下簡稱有戶籍國民)者 之子女權益,爰參酌國 籍法第二條第一項第二 款規定修正;另放寬國 外出生子女申請居留時 之年齡限制,爰刪除須 年滿二十歲之規定。

The office also told me not to call them for now (I just wanted to make sure whether they received my material that I sent via Facebook). Might be a shot in the dark, but any other ideas?

@tando

I know about this law, but my problem is that I simply don’t know any lawyer who does this Administrative Relief in the Taipei area. I wouldn’t even know how to start looking for one, given that all lawyers seem to be focused on commercial things here.