A lifeline to immigrant-background young people left behind by Korea’s system

all > NationalA lifeline to immigrant-background young people left behind by Korea’s systemPosted on : 2026-07-17 09:47 KST Modified on : 2026-07-17 09:57 KSTFacebook 페이스북Twitter 트위터Add as preferred source on GoogleThe Kang Tae-wan Fellowship, which honors a young man who died after sharing his struggle to gain legal status in Korea, is helping young people of immigrant backgrounds as they navigate a system that continually tells them that they do not belong in Korea despite it being their only home Still from a promotional video for the Let Us Dream campaign featuring Kang Tae-wan. The campaign concerned second-generation immigrants being granted legal status. (courtesy Migration & Human Rights Institute) One year and eight months have passed since the death of Kang Tae-wan, the subject of the Hankyoreh article series titled “Between Hojun and Hoijun” that ran from July 2020 to July 2024.

After being brought to Korea by his mother in 1998 at age 5, Kang remained for more than two decades as an undocumented immigrant. Later, he managed to gain legal residence in Korea on the condition that he work for five years in an area experiencing population decline.But just five months after his return, Kang died in an industrial accident in November 2024 while handling heavy equipment at his workplace in Gimje, North Jeolla Province.

Nearly two years later, the question of whether his employer is criminally liable for his fatal accident at the age of 32 is still being reviewed by Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor.Kang’s story inspired the newly launched Kang Tae-wan Fellowship, which aims to provide emergency assistance to other immigrants, like Kang, who are frustrated in their dreams of making Korea their permanent home. Three young people have been named the fund’s first beneficiaries.

After Kang’s death, the government extended the deadline for young migrants in Korea to receive residency status, but officials have dragged their feet in taking the next step of the initiative. And that delay is creating a host of headaches for those migrants.When paramedics took 24-year-old Marina to the hospital last month, the doctor diagnosed her with malnutrition and anemia.

For over a year, Marina had gotten by on one meal a day.Koreans often comfort themselves with the thought that in such a highly developed country, people may struggle, but at least they don’t have to worry about starvation. But Marina couldn’t even keep food on the table.

“Like any other teenage girl, I love K-pop idols. However, if you want to go to a concert, you need tickets. If you want to get tickets, you need to book tickets, which means you need to be a registered member of ticket sales platforms.

But I don’t have the resident registration number you need to create an ID for those sites,” Marina said.“Every time I hit that wall, my mind started overflowing with depressing thoughts,” she said. Ever since she wrote a petition to the minister of justice in ninth grade (2017), Marina has been plagued by depression.

She began taking medication around that time. However, what brought her relief was not medication, but the times she was accepted as being Korean. Marina is also known as “Nana.”

When she was still in middle and high school, she was introduced as “Nana” in the second article of the Hankyoreh series (published on Aug. 8, 2020) documenting the late Kang’s five-year journey to become officially recognized as a Korean citizen. She was born in 2002 to two Mongolian migrant workers who met in Korea.

Marina, who was born in Seoul, was responsible for handling nearly all communication on behalf of her family. From the time that she was in elementary school, she already knew that she was undocumented and was not legally allowed to reside in Korea, as she had to act as a translator and interpreter for her disabled parents, who used sign language to communicate since they had hearing issues and language impairments. “What must I do to live an ordinary life here?”

she wrote in her petition to the justice minister. Even when she became disheartened by the reality that undocumented children of immigrants were not permitted to take the infamous Suneung test, leading her to question whether pursuing an education was a viable path, Marina did not give up. She did her best when preparing for college and acted as the leader of her school’s volunteer club.

In May 2020, she was one of the two individuals recognized by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) as having had her human rights violated due to the lack of a system to grant legal status to undocumented children of immigrants who have resided long-term in Korea. In December 2019, when Marina was in 11th grade, she and a Vietnamese 12th grader who was born and raised in Korea filed a complaint with the NHRCK, calling for an end to the fear of immigration raids that shaped their daily lives. This was six months before Kang went to the immigration office to give notification of his intent