‘Deportation of illegal aliens is constitutional’

The Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that the deportation of illegal aliens after putting them into custody is constitutional.

It said that the immigration office placing illegal foreign workers into custody and expelling them in accordance with the Immigration Control Law does not violate basic human rights.

Foreign workers will subsequently be repatriated unless they are granted refugee status.

Two plaintiffs, one from Nepal and another from Bangladesh, filed a petition to the Constitutional Court claiming that the immigration office had violated their rights. The two, who came to Korea in 1991 and 1998 respectively, remained in the country even after their visas had expired. The former came on a 15-day tourist visa and the latter with a 90-day visa.

They were arrested and placed into emergency custody following a workplace raid by Seoul Immigration Office authorities in 2008. They had been working as union leaders for foreign workers since earlier that year.

They were then deported within two weeks.

The plaintiffs claimed in their petition, “The implementation of emergency custody goes against the arrest warrant policy or the due process, and violates one’s freedom to move around or lodge.” They also claimed that deportation infringed on their rights of access to courts and rights to equality.

The court, however, dismissed the petition saying that the plaintiffs had no intention of leaving the country and without the deportation procedure, they would have fled.

“If the immigration office did not take such measures, they would not have agreed to the procedure willingly. Deporting them to their country or protecting them under emergency custody until that time did not violate their rights,” the court said in its ruling.

“The two were subject to emergency custody orders stipulated by the Immigration Control Law and the office’s decision was constitutional.”

However, one dissenting judge said, “Emergency custody does not contain an urgency factor and compulsive expulsion from the country seems like an arbitrary decision by the court.” <The Korea Times/Yun Suh-young>

news@theasian.asia