Tue, Oct 14, 2008 page4

• Community Compass: MY STORY: Becoming a permanent alien not as painful as it seems

  HERE TO STAY Despite a daunting pile of forms to fill-in, a medical test and an interview, the process of obtaining an APRC need not be a major headache

  • By Perry Svensson / STAFF REPORTER
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  “Pregnancy, yes, no?”

  The question wasn’t included on the printed form, but the nurse decided to ignore my beard and focus on my earrings — she stamped the question onto each of the three identical forms I had to complete without a carbon copy.

  “Pregnancy, yes, no?”

  One by one I ticked them off — No, no and no.

  I have gone through the process of obtaining an Alien Permanent Residence Certificate (APRC), in fact a straightforward affair made easier by the helpful staff at the National Immigration Agency (NIA).

  I based the application on my Joining Family Resident Visa (JFRV), rather than on my past work record in Taiwan, since the JFRV automatically included a blanket work permit allowing me to do any job I wanted without working illegally.

  An application based on past work experience requires that the applicant have only worked for the company providing the work permit and violations of this rule may even lead to deportation.

  Documents were needed: One clear criminal record (良民證) from my home country and one from Taiwan, a clean bill of health, tax statements (納稅證明) and detailed tax reports (所得資料清單) for the last three years, a copy of my household registration (戶籍謄本), and, from my employer, tax withholding statements (扣繳憑單) for the past two years and proof of employment (在職證明) to serve as proof of income.

  The home country criminal record and the health exam are valid for three months, the other documents for one month.

  I also needed to bring any old residence permits and passports that I had. I must have felled a forest with all the photocopies required. One of each document and two of the old passports and residence permits, including two of each entry/exit visa and stamp in each of the passports.

  Finally, I had to prove that I have resided in Taiwan for 183 days every year for the last five years by providing a listing of all entries and exits to and from Taiwan during the period. This information was magically provided by the case handler at the time of the interview.

  Take heart — it is easier than it sounds.

  The biggest problem was getting the criminal record from Sweden. I had to get the document issued by the Swedish police and sent to my parents, who had to have it translated into Chinese.

  The translation then had to be notarized and sent together with the original document to the Swedish foreign ministry for legalization, before going to the Taiwanese representative office in Sweden for legalization by the Taiwanese authorities.

  Swedish document in hand, I started the process here in Taiwan by calling the NIA to make sure that the list of required documents in the NIA’s printed information was exhaustive. It was. All local documentation was then easily acquired or applied for in two mornings.

  My employer reissued the tax withholding statements and the proof of employment the next day. Tax documents and household registration were issued on the spot at the tax office and the household registration office. The clear Taiwanese criminal record was applied for in five minutes at the Taipei City Main Police Station and could be picked up five days later.

  On the third day, I had my health checked at Renai Hospital — the NIA has a list of approved hospitals — which has a department on the first floor dedicated to dealing with residence permit health checks.

  I went there when they opened at 9am with three photos, passport and residence permit, completed the forms in triplicate – form B (乙表) for permanent residence permits – and waited five minutes for the examination to begin. A week later I picked up the result.

  Health exam completed, I called my case handler, and when we were satisfied that I had all the necessary documentation, we aranged an appointment for the interview.

  The health exam provided the first, and only, snag. It showed a harmless parasite – probably too much raw beef and sashimi the doctor said — that I still had to get rid of before I could become a certified healthy man.

  Taking the medication would bring me past the interview date and the doctor also said these things frequently require more than one course of treatment, which had me worried that my documents would expire before I got an OK from the hospital.

  No problem. The interview was held as scheduled and I was allowed to complement it with a certificate from the doctor at a later date. Still, if I had taken the health exam as I applied for the clean criminal record from Sweden, the problem would have been taken care of by the time I started dealing with the locally issued documents.

  The “interview,” it turned out, was a practical matter of verifying that all documentation was OK, and that every single photocopy had my signature on it. The whole procedure was completed with a visit to the fingerprinting machine downstairs and that was it.

  About two months later, my case handler called to say that the authorities were ready to receive my NT$10,000, and five days after that, a group of six foreigners met at the NIA to receive our APRCs and a short information session.

  The whole process had taken three months, including the application for the clean criminal record from Sweden. I applied for my Taiwanese documents in late July, had the interview in early August and received my APRC late last month.

  I am now a happy permanent alien.

  In Taipei City, detailed information on the APRC application procedure in both English and Chinese is available at the NIA at No. 15, Guangzhou St.

  APRC info: 02-2388 5185, ext. 3132

  The NIA’s information Web site for foreign residents: http://iff.immigration.gov.tw

  The main NIA web site: www.immigration.gov.tw/

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