JINJU — Foreign residents in five cities and counties in western Gyeongsang Province must travel to Changwon to extend their stay. That is the situation facing 11,543 registered foreigners living in the region, and a petition has now been filed with the central government calling for an immigration branch office in Jinju to ease the administrative burden.
The Gyeongsangnam-do Provincial Council said on the 29th that provincial council member Yang Hae-young (People Power Party, Jinju 2) took the lead on the 28th in filing a petition urging the government to establish a Jinju branch of the Changwon Immigration Office.
According to Ministry of Justice data on registered foreigners, the number living in Jinju and the counties of Sancheong, Hamyang, Geochang and Hapcheon rose 77.3% over five years, from 6,512 at the end of June 2021 to 11,543 at the end of June this year.
Yet there is no permanent branch office serving the five localities. The Changwon Immigration Office oversees branches in Sacheon, Tongyeong and Geoje, with the Sacheon branch covering Sacheon and the counties of Namhae and Hadong. Jinju and the counties of Sancheong, Hamyang, Geochang and Hapcheon fall under the main office in Changwon. That means anyone needing in-person services such as foreigner registration or a stay extension must travel to Changwon.
The burden is heavier in the county areas, where long-distance travel and reliance on public transportation add both time and cost. When foreign workers must handle paperwork during working hours, or when employers or interpreters have to accompany them, the result can be work disruptions and added labor management costs for companies and farms.
Staff from the Changwon Immigration Office once visited Jinju regularly to provide mobile services for administrative requests. Those visits stopped after the spread of COVID-19 and have not resumed. In July this year, the city of Jinju formally requested both a resumption of the mobile service and the establishment of a Jinju branch, offering office space at the Jinju Startup Support Center.
The petition calls on the government and the Ministry of Justice to open the Jinju branch as soon as possible and to take the necessary administrative and budgetary steps. It also asks that the suspended periodic mobile services be resumed and expanded until the branch opens.
"Foreign residents fill labor shortages in farming, livestock and small and midsize manufacturing, and they help sustain both local universities and industrial worksites as important members of the community," Yang said. "We need to build the administrative service infrastructure to support stable settlement and employment closer to where they live."
"Jinju is the hub city of western Gyeongnam connecting nearby cities and counties, and it has both experience running mobile services and the potential to secure office space," Yang added. "We should push for a permanent branch office while resuming the periodic mobile services first, to reduce the inconvenience facing foreign residents, businesses and farms."
