Koreans face date-of-birth quagmire

Joongang - A large portion of Koreans born in the United States, Canada and some other countries with sizable time differences with Korea have two different birth dates on their passports and social security numbers.

That’s because Korean law mandates that Koreans born abroad have their births registered in Korean time, not local time. For example, when a Korean couple gives birth to a baby in New York at 1 p.m. on July 10, it translates to 2 a.m. on July 11 here.

The baby will have July 10 as a birth date on his or her U.S. passport and Social Security card, while the baby’s residence registration certificate and Korean passport will have the later date. And in extreme cases, a person born on the last day of the year can have even the year of birth extended due to the time gap.

Double nationality holders complain they are at time mistaken for being illegal immigrants. Sometimes, they can even be black-listed by overseas immigration offices.

A Korean-American woman, who declined to be identified, said she and her underage daughter were blocked from entrance to the United States by the U.S. immigration authorities in February. They were returning from a trip to Korea.

The immigration officer asked her why her daughter’s birth date on her U.S. passport and the birth date on the list of passengers, which the officer had received from a Korean airline, didn’t match.

The woman showed her daughter’s Korean passport, which had a birth date identical to that on the passenger list. After the lengthy give and take, the mother and daughter finally convinced the immigration officer that there was a simple explanation. But before it was over, the woman said she became “very angry because she was being treated like an illegal immigrant.”

Koreans with double nationalities say that on a number of occasions they have had to submit separate documents in foreign countries where they reside to prove that the different date of birth is due to Korean regulations.

According to the Supreme Court, the time difference is based on the rule that “uniform standards” should apply to all Korean citizens. Some countries make it impossible for Korea to directly reflect the date of birth of Koreans born there. For example, Vietnam officially uses the lunar calendar while Egypt uses the date Feb. 30 - a date that doesn’t exist in other countries.

However, native citizens of the United States, Britain, Japan and France and other major economies have their dates of birth recorded based on overseas time.

“Wouldn’t it be inconvenient if the date of birth takes into account time difference? We reflect the hour and date of birth as written in the birth certificate overseas,” said an official with U.S. Embassy in Korea.

According to the consular department at the France Embassy here, only when the date of birth of French citizens born overseas doesn’t exist on the French calendar, does the country take into account the time gap. The same is true with Japan.

Join Facebook group in support of the Dream Act activism here

Article by By Kwon Seok-cheon from social affairs Joongang daily