The Korean government continues to exclude foreigners residing in Korea from crisis support for disasters. According to the “High Oil Price Relief Payment Plan” announced on April 11, 2026, in the name of the whole-of-government task force on the high oil price relief payment, the government decided to pay a high oil price relief payment to ease the burden on the public from high oil prices, a high exchange rate and high prices caused by the war in the Middle East, and to provide additional support to vulnerable groups. Foreigners are in principle excluded from the support, which targets the income groups in the bottom 70 percent. As an exception, those with a high degree of connection to Korean nationals are included: those registered on a resident registration record that includes at least one Korean national, or those who hold the status of permanent resident (F-5), marriage migrant (F-6) or recognized refugee (F-2-4) and are health insurance subscribers, dependents or medical benefit recipients. Overseas Koreans, on the other hand, can receive the relief payment if they enter the country between March 30 and July 17.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019, when local governments such as Seoul and Gyeonggi Province began paying disaster relief funds to residents, discrimination against foreigners in the targets of payments made for reasons such as economic recovery and economic crisis, including the government’s emergency disaster relief funds and the “livelihood recovery consumption coupons”, has been criticized as arbitrary and irrational. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea also expressed an opinion to the government last March, on the “livelihood recovery consumption coupon” payment policy, that the targets for foreigners need to be expanded, because excluding long-term resident migrants from economic stimulus support policies could damage social equity and community solidarity and hinder social integration.
The targets of this “high oil price relief payment” also have several problems. The Resident Registration Act does not make resident registration mandatory for foreigners, and records them on the household resident registration record only upon application, and only where they are the spouse or a lineal blood relative of a householder or household member who is a Korean national. Since the stay of foreigners is managed through alien registration under the Immigration Act, foreigners are not subject to the creation of resident registration records; yet every time disaster support is provided, “registration on the resident registration record” is made a requirement, so family members of Korean nationals who are not entered on a resident registration record are excluded. A foreign-national unmarried mother raising the child of a Korean national born out of wedlock cannot become a basic livelihood recipient and therefore could not apply for the first round of payments. Foreign-national compatriots, migrant workers, international students, asylum seekers and others who live in Korea without forming a family relationship with Korean nationals, and who face the damage from high oil prices, a high exchange rate and high prices just as Korean nationals do, are already excluded from the existing public assistance system and have once again been left out of this support policy.
On one hand, the government emphasizes immigration policy because of population decline, labor shortages and the crisis of regional extinction, and local governments are competing to attract migrants. A discriminatory policy that uses migrants only when they are needed, for example as labor, while excluding them from support, is a contradictory measure that runs against the task of our era, which is to coexist and live together with migrants. We remind the Korean government that it is a state party to the “UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination”, in which it pledged to fulfill the obligation not to engage in unjust discrimination on the basis of nationality, and we strongly demand that the government implement disaster support policies that do not discriminate between Korean nationals and foreigners.
[단체] 각색교사모임, 경계인의몫소리연구소, 공공운수노조 서울지역본부, 광주외국인노동자센터, 광주전남이주노동자 인권네트워크, 난민인권네트워크(TFC(The First Contact for Refugee), 공익법센터 어필, 공익변호사와 함께하는 동행, 공익사단법인 정, 공익인권법재단 공감, 공익인권센터 드림(DREAM), 국제난민지원단체 피난처, 글로벌호프, 난민인권센터(NANCEN), 동두천난민공동체, 동두천가톨릭센터, 동작FM, 민주사회를 위한 변호사모임 국제연대위원회, 비영리단체 겨자풀, 사단법인 두루, 성가소비녀회 의정부관구 동두천 베타니아, 성가소비녀회 의정부관구 파주 베타니아, 수원글로벌드림센터, 순천이주민지원센터, 아시아의친구들, 아시아평화를향한이주MAP, 이주여성을위한문화경제공동체 에코팜므, 이주민지원공익센터 감동, 외국인이주노동자인권을위한모임, 의정부 EXODUS, 이주민센터 친구, 천주교제주교구이주사목센터 나오미, 재단법인 동천, 재단법인 화우공익재단