Reasons for NWOHR getting TARC

Hey @Lain,

That’s great to hear 蕭美琴 or at least a staffer on her team did something. I’m actually pretty happy to hear that. I’m sorry to hear you’re still having difficulty with this.

I suppose you could try other politicians related to that legislation, but it might produce the same result.

I think it would be good to better understand the details of NIA’s reasoning (although it sounds like maybe they weren’t explaining it in clear detail).

To summarize my understanding:

The main significant differences in our two cases are: (1) my ROC parent is not alive, but yours is; (2) my ROC parent never renounced citizenship, but your ROC parent did (and this had a subsequent effect on your ROC parent’s HHR).

In a sense, you don’t currently have an ROC parent because your mom is not an ROC national. I would try pointing that out to them, so therefore the requirement that your ROC parent have an HHR in Taiwan maybe should be irrelevant since you don’t have an ROC parent. This might seem counter-intuitive, but to me this logically might work. Even if your mom passed away, would you even currently have a way to register that with the ROC? For all they know, she could be passed away overseas as a foreign national (not saying you should fake it, but my point is they’re no longer tracking her as an ROC citizen and not tracking her status of alive or deceased, so how can they apply that information in their decision about your rights?). It can’t even be added to the old HHR, right?

So if you can get them to accept the above, then the other part is your ROC parent renouncing ROC nationality. To me, this applies to your ROC parent only, and you never renounced. They seem to accept this since you have an active, valid ROC passport. Based on what I’ve read about HHR and NWOHR, what we’ve all been told is that AF384 applies if your parent had HHR at the time you were born overseas. Were you born overseas before your mom renounced her citizenship and the HHR was revoked? If so, that seems like AF384 should apply to you. Then, if they bring up AF353, I think they can’t apply that to you based on the above point that you don’t have an ROC parent right now.

To me this would seem like the strongest case based on my own personal opinions and experience.

However, that act of renouncing citizenship had a legal effect on the HHR, so that needs to be explored to build a stronger case.

That said, I need to heavily disclaim that I am not a lawyer nor a legal expert and at this point you’ve probably read more legal documents than I have. The above writing is just my personal opinion.

I think we should also recognize that laws in any country or legal system are very complicated and while NIA’s explanation that the law can’t be written clearly is disappointing, many laws are truncated when described on 2-page forms or have related influencing laws that impact how the law is implemented. For example, in the United States there is the right to bear arms, which basically means weapons and originally I believe guns. So in the U.S. citizens have the right to own arms/guns, so we can all acquire arms/guns whenever we want, right? Well, not quite, there are restrictions described in the full law and subsequent laws which change the way this is implemented. You can’t have stockpiles of nuclear weapons, a private army of fighter jets, ICBMs, etc., and various regions have their own local laws restricting automatic rifles, etc. I guess my point is simply: we can read something about a law in isolation in one document, but it’s hard to know the full range of possible documents and text we need to know to understand all of the variables involved. Maybe another place to start researching is nationality law related to when people renounce citizenship – what does that mean for the person and their family? What rights are lost? How does this influence the way other laws are applied to a person? What exactly does this do to a HHR?

Also we should clarify with those in charge of HHR: what are the specific statuses of HHR? On the internet and casually in conversation, people throw around ‘active’ and ‘inactive’, but what does that actually mean? When we looked at what was written on the HHRs our families had, the terminology doesn’t seem to necessarily line up so simply into the buckets ‘active’ and ‘inactive’. Maybe there are other statuses. Which of these qualifies as 設有戶籍?

Since our cases only differ in a significant way related to (1) deceased/living ROC parent and (2) ROC parent did/didn’t renounce citizenship (and subsequent effect on HHR), I would think that those would be the fuller set of laws that could influence the nationality and immigration laws you have been looking at. Fully knowing those might cover all or most of the remaining legal variables (I’m not sure – maybe there could be more). Most of us on these forums haven’t read those, so we could be running in circles just saying what we think sounds right without checking all possible factors. We’re just voices on the internet who could give you horrible advice even if we have good intentions.

I would also check the ROC constitution to see if there are fundamental constitutional rights that the highest court would need to uphold. I’m not familiar with ROC constitutional law and previous cases though.

The constitution in the ROC, like other countries, is also possible to amend. For example, in U.S. history the legal voting age was changed because people could be conscripted into war at age 18 but couldn’t vote, so they reduced the voting age to match.

The only counterargument that I can think of from the NIA’s perspective is if renouncing citizenship means you basically lose some or all legal statuses retroactively, including HHR. Like the whole HHR is null and void in all aspects and can’t be used again for anything legally ever. That’s why I suggest looking into those laws. That way you could see if anything like that exists, or prove to them that nothing like that exists.

That said, if they told you the main issue is that your mom is alive so you should use that method for NWOHRs who have a living ROC parent, I think that doesn’t make any sense to me since your parent is no longer an ROC national. That said, maybe those people you talked to are saying that based on what their typical work process that they are accustomed to is (i.e. Standard Operating Procedure manual instructions), rather than the actual legal aspects of your case.

Other ideas off the top of my head would be:

  • See if there are any famous or notable people who had a similar situation. You can look for celebrities or public figures with parents from different nationalities, particular from countries that require renouncing ROC citizenship to gain local citizenship. If those people found a way, you should also have a way. You only need to find 1 successful example.

  • Ask around the community of that non-ROC country and see if there are Taiwanese people who went through a similar experience and now it was handled.

  • Try to connect with professors or lawyer alumni groups for schools like 台大 or lawyer professional groups. At one point in my life I had to use a lawyer in Taiwan to go after someone for something. The first recommendation I got was horrible, but the next one I got from an ex-girlfriend was really good, but it was her friend who helped me find someone in her network of contacts, so it was a really distant connection in a specific region of Taiwan. You could check Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Your case is pretty interesting so maybe they’ll pass it around their community and it’ll land in front of the right person.

  • Talk to immigration lawyers in Taiwan. I think many of them might not be good and might give you bad info, but it’s a numbers game. I would go to them with the facts of your case first without your rationale, and see what they say. If they say things that show they really don’t understand the law, move on. Try a bunch. If you try 10, and 1 out of 10 is good, that’s still good enough to get you the person you need. It might sound like a lot of work, but you’ve already gone this far so clearly you care about this a lot, and it’s probably still less work than getting your mom to get ROC citizenship again and establish a new HHR.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. I’ll post again if I can think of anything else. I’m open to questions, criticism, or anything else.

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I’m not sure if they could give any info more than you already have, but it may be no harm to try legal aid foundation. To get their actual legal support you might need to be a resident, but I think maybe you can hear a brief advice/interpretation from a lawyer on legal matter for 20min. If you can go with your cousin, I’m sure you can get the brief advice. Since you are a national, and it is on a matter of legal system, I think they might give you legal support too. You could ask them if they know any lawyers who are working on this kind of cases.

Again, I’m not sure how they can be helpful, but my point is trying them may be no harm, and you might get some useful info from them.

https://www.laf.org.tw/en/

Things I think you might get some info from them are

How to get a written rejection of your application from NIA, if it is possible.
How to appeal
Any recommended lawyer
Interpretation of the immigration law, article 9.
If there is any regulation or official notification saying parents should not have renounced roc nationality.

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I want to leave another note here for anyone applying for a TARC overseas via a TECO.

Today I went to NIA to turn in my 副本, and they said they usually need 1-2 working days to produce the actual document.

This is important because my cousin originally wanted to go Friday, and I already planned to fly back to the U.S. Sunday, and NIA is not open on the weekend. So one problem could have been not being able to be around to pick up the TARC.

However this can lead to bigger problems because using the 副本 document which includes a one-time 入境許可,you cannot leave Taiwan without the TARC after entering on that one-time entry permit. You also can’t use your previous NWOHR entry/exit permit because it’s not the one you entered with. So, I would have had to change my flight and work schedule due to that. Add in the X factor of typhoons days, and my point is that it’s important to make sure you trade the 副本 in to NIA with enough time before the next time you need to leave Taiwan.

No one really explained this to me up front as far as I can remember (maybe it’s written in the directions and I forgot), but I think this is really important for people to know if they apply this way.

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Picked up the TARC today.

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Hi, it’s me again. First of all, I’m happy for you @multipass that you received your TARC!

I’m currently in an application limbo; I’ll write more about that when I get the time, but first I need to check something quickly. Perhaps you or other succesful TARC applicants can help me in this regard:

One of the required documents is the marriage record. Can I ask you what kind of marriage record you supplied for the NIA? Since my parents got married in Taiwan, I have a “結婚公證書” both in Chinese and English (called “Notarial Certificate of Marriage (Translated Copy)”. These 2 certificates were issued by the 台灣臺北地方法院公證處 because my parents went there to marry.

However, my problem is: My father used a Chinese name for everything at the time of their marriage. Hence, the Chinese version has his Chinese name printed on it. The English version, on the other hand, only uses his English i.e. non-Chinese name. Now, on my birth certificate (translated copy), only my parents English names are used, and it seems like the NIA has a problem with the fact that I cannot “prove” (with my birth certificate) that the man that my mother married (with his Chinese name) is my father. Because that would require them to somehow “honor” the English version of the marriage record.

Both certificates were provided at the same time by the 台灣臺北地方法院公證處, a fairly official entity as far as I can see, so I’m looking for a way to somehow convince the NIA to accept the marriage records.

Has anyone experienced similar issues? Did you also provide a 結婚公證書 or is there perhaps another document with more data on it?

Hey @Lain, I’m glad to hear there is still hope with your case!

Can I ask you what kind of marriage record you supplied for the NIA? Since my parents got married in Taiwan, I have a “結婚公證書” both in Chinese and English (called “Notarial Certificate of Marriage (Translated Copy)”. These 2 certificates were issued by the 台灣臺北地方法院公證處 because my parents went there to marry.

This is pretty interesting. My parents also got married in Taipei. At first, I thought I should provide the 結婚公證書 and it also was issued by 台灣臺北地方法院公證處 – so when I emailed TECO this a couple of years ago to do my ROC passport, they told me that actually I should provide the household registration. In their email they wrote:

hello, thank you for those documents which you provided. but we need household registration certificate ( show marriage be resisted in household registration office )

So I basically never ended up using it (no one asked for it), and instead I showed the household registration record (戶籍謄本) where the marriage was recorded.

However, my problem is: My father used a Chinese name for everything at the time of their marriage. Hence, the Chinese version has his Chinese name printed on it. The English version, on the other hand, only uses his English i.e. non-Chinese name.
Now, on my birth certificate (translated copy), only my parents English names are used, and it seems like the NIA has a problem with the fact that I cannot “prove” (with my birth certificate) that the man that my mother married (with his Chinese name) is my father. Because that would require them to somehow “honor” the English version of the marriage record.

So I think maybe I can help here. On the marriage certificate, it also only has my parents’ Chinese names. On my birth certificate (from Australia), it also only has their English names.

So based on the fact that they told you they need to prove the man your mom married is your father, I think the main key for me probably was that the 戶籍謄本 has both my dad’s Chinese and English names both. It also says he’s from the U.S. So I guess that was sufficient to match my dad’s English and Chinese names. His English name is written there in full, with first, middle and last names. Then, they could cross-check that with my birth certificate and his passport, which I provided.

Can you check to see if your mom’s 戶籍謄本 has the marriage recorded with his name in both languages?

If that’s not possible, maybe your dad did some other paperwork in Taiwan at some point to declare some official Chinese name to match with his English name?

I’m hoping maybe if you can check the 戶籍謄本, that could hopefully solve this issue for you.

Side note: If you already did the passport previously, wasn’t that already a requirement for the passport? Could they waive this requirement if it was already proven previously?

One other thing I thought of: if they do end up needing to use or “honor” the English version, maybe you could see if they’ll accept an authenticated version or something like that. Maybe your dad could also provide a 聲明書 to match the names, but I’m a little worried it wouldn’t be acceptable retroactively (otherwise people could claim the identity of other people).

Actually I’m a little surprised they can’t accept the English marriage certificate in combination with the Chinese one, if the English one is an authenticated translation copy. I assume it has the date and location of the marriage, and you can already probably prove your mom’s English name with her ROC passport. So, do they think your mom married 2 people on the same day in the same location with the same nationality and the same date of birth? Was that even legally possible? Actually I just looked at the photos of the 結婚公證書 and translated version that I also have for my parents, and it includes their dates of birth and my mom’s address, so really I think that should be pretty solid. My English translated version also has a stamp from the 台灣臺北地方法院公證處 , so it should be authenticated on the Taiwan side already. There is also a 證字 number on both, which I think is the same. I would think if your English translated copy is like mine, and has the authentication stamp and the same document number and same address and everything, maybe they should accept that. I would point those things out and ask them to explain why they can’t accept the translated version if it’s authenticated and has the same document ID number. I would think your dad would have needed to prove at the time who he was for that authentication to take place (although I can’t be 100% sure about this – things in the past were even less organized).

Let me know if I can help in any other way.

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What would you do in my case:

The NIA currently wants me to wait for 2 weeks until they find a copy of my father’s passport. Where do they want for look at it? At the 戶政事務所 where my mother registered her marriage.

I already went there and they told me they don’t have my father’s information. This also explains why my mother’s 除戶騰本 only has my father’s Chinese name—perhaps no one cared or simply forgot to add my father’s English name, and hence never asked for his passport. As far as I know, they don’t have a copy of my mother’s passport as well. Just a copy of the 結婚公證書.

The NIA says, though, that the 戶政事務所 perhaps didn’t have the permission to tell me all data, and that the NIA can reveal more information if they ask.

Now here’s what I find a little bit weird about this situation:

  • I doubt that my father—as a foreigner without HHR in Taiwan—ever had the need to go to a 戶政事務所 and leave a copy of his passport there. I suppose the only opportunity for this was when my parents registered their marriage. But from what I know the 戶政事務所 does not have my father’s passport.
  • If any kind of public office should have a copy of my father’s passport, shouldn’t it be the NIA itself? Given that they check every passport of visitors to Taiwan …
  • Why can’t the NIA simply acknowledge the marriage certificate by the 臺北地方法院公證處?

The clerk kindly asked me not to get involved anymore. Would you simply wait the 2 weeks and wait for their results or intervene with an attorney?

I’m currently looking for advise on what to do … on one hand I don’t want to annoy the wrong person, but on the other hand, I feel like I’ve already waited enough …

Hey @Lain,

I would definitely thank them for helping and wait the two weeks unless you have a very urgent timeline, but still continue to make plans outside of that.

The government in Taiwan at the time your parents got married was probably far less organized in terms of process.

I doubt that my father—as a foreigner without HHR in Taiwan—ever had the need to go to a 戶政事務所 and leave a copy of his passport there. I suppose the only opportunity for this was when my parents registered their marriage.

I’m not familiar enough with the law here, but I think it might make sense that he might need to present some ID while recording marriage on your mom’s household registration.

If any kind of public office should have a copy of my father’s passport, shouldn’t it be the NIA itself? Given that they check every passport of visitors to Taiwan …

The part that I don’t understand is: your father’s passport doesn’t have his Chinese name, right? So I don’t think it’s sufficient for them just to get the passport. It doesn’t prove he’s the same guy as the guy whose Chinese name is listed in the marriage documents and household registration. I think they’re going back to the 戶政事務所 to dig through records to see if there is any file or photocopy or the passport that was used during the time of the updating of your mother’s household registration, or something like that. This would show that the person who was recorded in the household registration under that Chinese name matches with an ID for that person that has the English name.

So even if NIA had copies of everyone’s passport, I don’t think it would prove the identity matches between these two recorded instances of your father in different languages. While it’s probably not relevant, I also don’t think NIA keeps copies of foreign passports – historically they just check that it seems valid, stamp it, and record the entry when people enter the country.

Why can’t the NIA simply acknowledge the marriage certificate by the 臺北地方法院 公證處 ?

Yea, this is a good question and I think you should get an answer for it. Did you ask them? Did they provide any reason? I think you could approach them by asking something like, “hey as we’re waiting a couple of weeks to check with 戶政事務所, I wanted to ask: what’s the reason we can’t use the authenticated marriage certificate since the ID numbers match between these two documents and the government already notarized it?”

If at the end of 2 weeks they don’t come back with anything and say there’s nothing else they can do, my next course of action would be to question whether or not it was standard operating procedure for the 戶政事務所 to record your father’s English name when registering a marriage between a local and a foreigner. I would think it was – otherwise why would they bother recording the English name of my father in my mom’s household registration. If it was, the 戶政事務所 made a mistake and I would suggest that you should not be held responsible for their mistake. I would politely suggest that to the NIA before using a lawyer, and if they still reject that, I would probably start checking lawyers.

So to summarize my suggested 2 steps would be:

  1. Ask why the Chinese language marriage certificate and English language marriage certificate cannot be matched when they are notarized and have the same document ID number (and both are definitely your mom on the same date so unless they let her marry 2 people on the same day… well you get the point).

  2. Wait for their results with the 戶政事務所. If results are positive, great, you can move forward. If results are negative, ask if it was standard process to log the English name of foreigners in household registrations when locals married foreigners. If it was, suggest that you should not be held accountable for the mistake of the 戶政事務所. If that doesn’t work, check with lawyers.

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Hello. I have received my TARC. Thank you to everyone who took interest in my situation and shared advice. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.

I’m now the (probably only) living proof that for a TARC application, active household registration is not required. (In the sense that my mother is still alive, but is not registered anymore.) I’ll plan to write more about my case and the specific difficulties over in my thread to bring it to a closure, but I’d like to take some time to prepare because the last couple of weeks took some toil on me.

To go back to this topic’s question: To apply for a TARC, you don’t need a reason like “I want to study” or “I want to visit my family.” The “reason” you apply is a kind of criteria that you fall under, and depending on this, the required documents change a little bit.

Most typical TARC applicants can apply by being a descendent of a national with household registration who lives or lived in Taiwan, but some less popular reasons are getting employed by a Taiwanese company or having stayed for a certain amount of years in Taiwan. “Normal” foreigners can apply for an ARC with similar reasons (e.g. having stayed for a long time), but this is a different process. The TARC is only issued to NWOHRs and requires an NWOHR passport in any case.

Prepare all required documents overseas, and then simply go to the NIA in person to submit your application, or try to submit everything overseas like multipass did.

Here is the list of criteria that you can apply under, along with the required documents: https://www.immigration.gov.tw/media/42540/相關證明文件一覽表.pdf
The “code” will also get printed on your TARC, and depending on it you can apply for an Open Work Permit more easily (e.g. in the case of AF353).

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finally!

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Grats, Lain! Glad to hear you successfully got your TARC!

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This is really great news! I’m really happy for you Lain! I think when you’re ready and have more time and less stress and can document what your process was like, it will be a huge help to other people in similar situations. Hopefully all of the headache you went through will really help a lot of people.

I’m also selfishly interested in whether or not any of the random things I suggested were helpful or mostly useless :slight_smile:

Congrats Lain…It seems like your “Longest Journey” has almost come to an end but it was well worth it…

To clarify “The TARC is only issued to NWOHRs and requires an NWOHR passport in any case.”…in my case (naturalization), I didn’t need the NWOHR passport but I could apply for it AFTER I got my TARC so I can leave Taiwan if need be.

This is so cool…I never knew there were so many codes out there…Mine was AF372.

AF372 does it need work permit?

What a journey! Wondering if you know whether I can apply for a TARC if I have two Taiwanese parents whose HHR recently deactivated (dec 2020) but unable to come back to Taiwan due to Covid to renew. Hoping to apply under AF353 and saw your struggles here and wanted to see if you had any suggestions!

As long as you have a NWOHR passport and a proof of nationality by birth, you should be able to apply for a TARC one way or another (still providing additional documents, of course). Here are some thoughts on your situation:

  • Applying for a TARC from overseas is possible, but not many choose this route. Getting the official health examination done (and signed off) is especially cumbersome.
  • You can only apply under AF353 if you can provide a household registration that is currently active, in Taiwan. What about your parents’ parents’ HHR?
  • Instead of saying an HHR is “active” or “inactive,” perhaps it would be better to use the official term of “moving in” and “moving out.” As you might already know, after 2 years abroad, a citizen’s HHR will automatically be moved out. Some people say expired, but this is in no way a grave matter unlike the word suggests. An HHR that was moved out can always be moved in (“activated”) again by the HHR holder. It must be done in person, AFAIK.
  • Since your parents can theoretically come to Taiwan and move in their HHR, I’m not sure whether the NIA would allow you to apply under another criteria (e.g. AF384). AF384 could be the criteria you would use if you cannot provide a “moved-in” HHR anymore (mostly because of the dependent’s death).

Is there a specific reason why your parents cannot come to Taiwan to “renew” (other than caution, of course, which I totally understand)?

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Thanks Lain! Super helpful.

  1. I’m currently in Taiwan and just did the health check today!
  2. I only have one surviving grandma and her HHR has been “moved out” - she hasn’t returned to Taiwan for 10+ years and is too old now to come.
  3. Yeah, my parents’ HHR was just moved out in December 2020. They had planned to return to Taiwan this year to keep it “moved in” but you know, COVID. And couldn’t do it last year due to Heath reasons.
  4. Only reason my parents can come back to move in their HHR is COVID.

Would be unfortunate if this one month difference in “moving out” a HHR prevented me from getting a TARC…

I see, I assumed you were also overseas. If you don’t mind you could simply try applying under AF384 using your parents’ moved-out HHR. If the NIA sees that your parents are still “official citizens” and want you to apply under AF353, you could try explaining them the COVID situation.

The big difference between AF384 and AF353 would be automatically possessing an Open Work Permit with the latter. [Actually, I forgot whether it’s automatic, but you have the right to apply for one.]

Also, don’t forget that if you are under 20, you can skip the TARC entirely.

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Thanks! Over 20 so I guess I’ll see what they say when I submit all the application paperwork.

For the authenticated birth certificate - did you have to provide the original or was a copy sufficient? Just wondering if I need the original sent to me here.

Thanks again for all the help!!

If your original birth certificate is not in Chinese, you will always have to provide an authenticated copy+translation.

I’ll simply tell what I did for my birth certificate just to make sure what an “original” and a “copy” is:

  • I cannot get the one, true birth certificate because it’s in my city’s city hall. I had to apply for an authenticated copy.
  • Perhaps something specific to Germany, there were 2 types of authentication; I had to choose the “fuller” one, i.e. something which can be used to work with other countries later on.
  • I had this authenticated copy translated by an authenticated translator.
  • The translation had then be signed off by my local TECO (embassy).
  • From then on, this document (authenticated copy in German + Chinese translation + seal, clipped together) is my Chinese birth certificate.
  • It is now an “original,” so to say, and I always had to provide this one when applying for things (you will always get it handed back). I did not make a copy of it (other than for my own archive).

It’s a little bit different, easier I suppose, if you have your birth certificate translated locally in Taiwan. However, I cannot tell you whether the Taiwanese translator would also require a specific kind of authenticity.

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