As of Monday, 2,050 cases had been reported, according to the ministry. A total of 131.741 million won was paid to 156 people who had reported 311 confirmed cases.
Of the 311 cases, there were 219 institutes operating without proper registration, 49 unregistered tutors and 38 institutes caught charging excessive fees.
and it is and has been illegal to work at English camps without the permission of your employer and without having it added to your Alien Registration Card, or without having a visa for teaching camps. Some teachers got pinched last week; some posts from bourquetheman:
A camp that is on the same campus but is operated by a different outfit got 3 teachers busted on Friday. They were literally taken away like prisoners, no time to get luggage, nothing. Put in the immigration van and taken away. At immigration they were strip searched (I kid you not) once given their phonecall they were put in prison clothing and taken to a detention center, (again I kid you not). Are they guilty? Sure, but this seems a bit extreme to me. The company supposedly has to pay a 20 million won fine for each teacher, no idea how much the teachers themselves wil have to pay.
It also makes me wonder why people take the chances at camps like this. Of the 6 camps I've done I think over 3 or 4 of them have had immigration come and check. The real kicker is that our director asked why (politely of course as all our paperwork was in order) immigration had come to visit. They said they had received a phonecall. Everyone is betting money that it was from one of the 2 teachers fired during the 1st week of the camp. Again it was the other group but we saw them each night so we heard all the crap going down at theirs. The company was foolish to hire people who didn't have the proper visa and the teachers were also to blame for agreeing to teach.
. . .
Update is that the one on a student visa got out with a million won fine being paid by the director and is allowed to stay in country and continue studying. Get this, the camp wants him to finish the week teaching cause they paid his fine, can you believe this?
The other teacher who was on an expired e-2 has the bank account frozen (2 years of wages legally earned on an e-2) and being shipped out to a Japan ticket that had already been purchased. Wow....no collecting clothes or anything, shipped straight from the detention center.
. . .
I agree the schools should be hit hard too. Last week when this went down we heard the company was getting fined 20 million won each teacher. I said to myself there's no way that will be the end amount they will pay, and sure enough they only had to pay a million won fine for one of the teachers on a student visa, and then had the audacity to ask that teacher to come back and finish the week since they paid the fine, can you believe that? Plus and here is the kicker, they replaced the teachers that were caught with (yup you guessed it) illegals again, can you believe that? I mean once was bad enough but to pull this crap again? They got them (the new illegals) to sign two contracts, one saying they are "volunteering" at the camp, and the second one being the real one.
Hat tip to reader. News of a bust at an English camp, presumably the same one, made the Korean news last week, and the article says that one American on a different teaching visa and two other foreigners on student visas were apprehended at a camp at a university in Anseong.
9 comments:
This is one of those things where you just scratch your head and go, "Why?" Why does this happen again and again and again.
To be fair, some of the rules are a little complex (not murky, just complicated), like you can have two (I think) second jobs, studying counts as a second job, volunteering counts as a second job, etc., and Immigration should clearly present these. Maybe a handbook for people as they get their new ARC (is there such a thing already?).
I think if things were clearer to both teacher and hagwon, there would be far fewer such incidents, but they wouldn't completely disappear. There would be hagwons too balli balli to follow all the regs, and there would be teachers to lazy to follow them (yeah, I've run into some of these inexplicable types; I think I elaborated on it once here). Still, I think most of the problems would go away, since I believe most teachers and most hagwons are willing to follow the law.
And right there you have your answer why volunteering also counts as an off-visa activity, because people who are not legitimately volunteering would claim to be doing so.
Who's the bigger fool: the fool or the fool that employs the fool?
I shouldn't be wasting any time right now, but I took a few minutes to read some of the comments.
If people really are being denied access to their bank accounts beyond the money they would have been paid for the illegal activity for which they were caught, that is troubling. I suppose there could be some indication that they were working illegally (e.g., private teaching) beyond just the summer camp, but certainly their legal wages should be considered as part of that pot.
This is the kind of thing ATEK should be getting into, not cup pissing.
We can learn some serious lessons here.
1) Send your money regularly to an offshore bank account. Putting all your eggs in one basket could be disastrous.
2) "It's easier to apologize than to ask permission doesn't fly". Ask for permission and do the paper work with immigration. My dealings with immigration have been straightforward and quick, if you have your sh*t in order.
3) Most of the time it is not worth being greedy.
I can add a related one:
3) If you are doing any side work don't tell anyone, even close friends. Loose lips sink ships, but in this case loose lips can get you shipped.
Your second #3 is a good point. People blab and you can find yourself in trouble, especially when there are rewards involved.
Here's an update from one of the teachers busted:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=2135810#2135810
Studying counts as a second job? Whaa-aa-aat? That's the first I've heard of that. Can you explain a bit more? Almost all of the language teachers I met in my two years at hagwons spent some time in various language study programs (4-20 hrs/week).
"Maybe a handbook for people as they get their new ARC (is there such a thing already?)"
There is not. With all the emphasis during the summer seasons on busting illegals, it seems like it would be a good idea, though, wouldn't it?
I know ignorance of the law isn't an excuse, but the info isn't exactly readily available. Newbs are not going to know where to look for it, certainly.
It would behoove Immigration to help educate foreigners coming into Korea what their visa allows them to do, what it doesn't, and how you can add to it.
As for the treatment of teachers "pinched" in these cases, it's not at all dissimilar to treatments accorded to workers arrested in immigration raids conducted in the US. Although much of the proceedings are categorized as civil in nature (thus obviating the needs for appointed counsels for indigents as well as a host of other rights associated with criminal prosecutions), the entire procedure is run by armed guards and detainees are usually housed in jails co-mingled with criminal defendants.
So the Korea's treatment of these teachers should not be seen as extraordinary.
John B wrote:
Studying counts as a second job? Whaa-aa-aat? That's the first I've heard of that. Can you explain a bit more? Almost all of the language teachers I met in my two years at hagwons spent some time in various language study programs (4-20 hrs/week).
Well, I think this is more directed at certificate and degree programs. It might be less so with language programs. I know that when I was in Yonsei, Kimmi came in and asked for the alien reg numbers for all the foreign nationals studying there so they could check their visa status.
Basically, the logic is that your visa allows you permission to do whatever your visa status says you are doing. Just as you can't work on a study visa (because that's outside your visa "occupation" description), you can't study on a work visa (again, outside your "occupation" description).
Or rather, you can't do these "outside activities" without permission. You can file the paperwork and get permission to be enrolled in a master's program or whatever while you're working as an E2 or E1, etc.
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