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According to the Ministry of Justice, as of January this year, the number of illegal foreign residents has decreased significantly from 430,000 in October 2023 to 394,000. This is the result of the Ministry of Justice establishing a ‘5-year plan to reduce illegal residence’ and conducting strict crackdowns starting in 2023.
As the influx of foreign workers and international students has increased, the number of illegal foreign residents has also increased, exceeding 400,000 in 2022.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Justice established a permanent crackdown system for illegal stays and conducted regular joint crackdowns with related organizations such as the police, resulting in the detection of the largest number of illegal stays, approximately 45,000, last year, and measures were taken to have approximately 46,000 people voluntarily leave the country, reducing the number of illegal stays to the 300,000 range again in four years.
Forced eviction if social security is threatened
According to the Ministry of Justice's 2024 crackdown on illegal stayers, a total of 45,442 illegal stayers were subject to measures such as forced deportation, including 2,308 foreigners who threatened social safety by driving drugs, without a license, or driving a stolen car, and 1,425 foreigners who infringed on national jobs by working in the courier, delivery, and construction industries.
In particular, in order to block the environment that causes illegal stay, we caught around 460 brokers who arranged illegal employment and entry into the country, arrested 27 of them, and criminally punished 318 of them. We also imposed fines totaling 50 billion won on around 9,000 business owners who hired illegal foreigners.
The Ministry of Justice, in parallel with continuous crackdowns, actively encouraged illegal aliens to voluntarily leave the country, and in 2024, a total of 46,229 people voluntarily left the country, a 7.3% increase from the previous year's 43,133. In particular, a special voluntary departure period (2024.9. 30.~2025.1. 31.) was operated to exempt illegal aliens from fines and entry restrictions, and a total of 21,042 people were allowed to leave the country during this period.
K-ETA also reduces illegal stay
The Ministry of Justice also launched the Electronic Travel Authorization System (K-ETA) in September 2021 to block new illegal stays of foreigners entering the country without visas, which has a high rate of illegal stays.
As a result of the implementation of K-ETA, despite the fact that the number of entrants from the target countries has surged nearly fivefold, the rate of new illegal stays has decreased significantly from 1.6% (23,757 illegal stays out of 1,493,214 entrants) in 2022 to 0.2% (19,144 illegal stays out of 8,502,418 entrants) in 2024.
Acting Minister of Justice Kim Seok-woo said, “The new immigration policy being promoted by the Ministry of Justice is essential to preventing social and economic conflicts caused by illegal stay,” and added, “To this end, we will do our best to establish a strict order for stay, including by maintaining a consistent, constant crackdown system this year as well.”
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