North Korean expats are functionally stateless, so it is very difficult to leave South Korea even when they do have money.
The largest portion of the Korean diaspora live in China and Russia.
Why don’t we have a law for North Korea like the Cuban Adjustment Act that allows anyone who makes it out of the country to quickly become a permanent resident, without regard for how they got out of their country. The situation seems fairly similar, where encouraging more defectors makes the target country look bad, and it can deprive them of workers.
Who's 'we' here?
I suppose the US, but it would probably have to involve us paying for moving them to the US from South Korea. Otherwise South Korea could have such a program so that they can become residents with actual rights (or maybe they already do).
We (US) could run the program from our embassy. Unsure how we’d help them get money though. Can the US embassy in SK permit people to work for US companies or something, to open up a portion of the market for these people to legally work?
I guess I’m not so clear on what portion of their fucked status is coming from law, what’s coming from culture, and what’s just the desperation of total poverty as a result of arriving with nothing.
Because South Koreans don't have ambitions of building up a large militant ex-pat community to try a Bay of Pigs on Pyongyang.
Is it difficult because airlines and whatnot won’t carry them, or because the receiving country won’t let them immigrate due to being “stateless”?
Are they stateless in a way someone coming from Bolivia to the US isn’t, because NK’s outside of some globally-recognized state system? I’ve never considered this before.
North Korean expats are functionally stateless, so it is very difficult to leave South Korea even when they do have money.
The largest portion of the Korean diaspora live in China and Russia.
Why don’t we have a law for North Korea like the Cuban Adjustment Act that allows anyone who makes it out of the country to quickly become a permanent resident, without regard for how they got out of their country. The situation seems fairly similar, where encouraging more defectors makes the target country look bad, and it can deprive them of workers.
Who's 'we' here?
I suppose the US, but it would probably have to involve us paying for moving them to the US from South Korea. Otherwise South Korea could have such a program so that they can become residents with actual rights (or maybe they already do).
We (US) could run the program from our embassy. Unsure how we’d help them get money though. Can the US embassy in SK permit people to work for US companies or something, to open up a portion of the market for these people to legally work?
I guess I’m not so clear on what portion of their fucked status is coming from law, what’s coming from culture, and what’s just the desperation of total poverty as a result of arriving with nothing.
Because South Koreans don't have ambitions of building up a large militant ex-pat community to try a Bay of Pigs on Pyongyang.
Is it difficult because airlines and whatnot won’t carry them, or because the receiving country won’t let them immigrate due to being “stateless”?
Are they stateless in a way someone coming from Bolivia to the US isn’t, because NK’s outside of some globally-recognized state system? I’ve never considered this before.