The Birth Registration of Immigrant Children Born in Korea

A child’s birth registration is a prerequisite for the child to achieve his/her civil status. The birth registration system in Korea has gone through important changes in the past few months. The Act on Registration of Family Relations was amended in June, 2023. Under the new registration law, a child’s birth can be registered by the head of local government. The Act on Confidential Birth was legislated in October, 2023. Under the new law, a pregnant woman can give birth without giving her name to the hospital or civil registry. However, the new registration law does not apply to immigrant children, as the scope of law is limited to the civil registration of Korean nationals. Moreover, immigrant parents might not be able to benefit from the new system due to their fear of deportation. This paper studies legal system of other countries regulating nationality (or citizenship), birth registration, and immigration, in order to design a new registration law which guarantees every child’s birth registration. The countries where children acquire nationality based on his/her parents’ nationality allow birth registration of children of foreign parents. Japan, even though its nationality law and immigration law are as conservative as Korea’s, allows immigrant children’s birth registration. I suggest the Act on Registration of Family Relations be amended so as to allow immigrant children’s birth registration, and the enforcement decree of the Immigration Act also be amended so that the information on foreign parents will not be transferred to the immigration office.