Stateless Junior....

The local parliament is currently in session and one focus is the amendment of immigration law. I had read across the news that one Malaysian doctor Y had given up and his citizenship and yet his application of local citizenship was rejected. He had become a “human ball” – stateless person.

I presumed that he had held a Taiwan alien resident certificate (presumably a permanent one). The reason of the rejection was that he was involved in a court case with the national health bureau. According to the procedure of getting the local nationality, one would submit an application (incl. local criminal record) to the home ministry. If the application was approved, the ministry would issue a cert of quasi ROC naturalization certificate to the applicant stating that he/she is eligible for citizenship. By then, the application would submit the certificate to the MFTC (Malaysia Friendship and Trade Center) and fill in the Borang K(form K) to renounce your Malaysian citizenship. The official would allow one to sign the Borang K if you had shown proof that you had citizenship of another country or a quasi naturalization certificate.

Apparently something had gone wrong during his application and he was stranded…. I had done a research over the net and found that Y was possible one of our junior(3 years junior than me). He had changed his name from ZP to XF…. Y had opened up a small clinic in the secluded area at the central part of Taichung. With the help of another Malaysian doctor G who had dual citizenship (our senior who is 4 years senior than me ) that had travelled back to Malaysia to practice, he had set up a clinic by placing G as the clinic in charge as Y had no IC here in Taiwan. G had a brother that opened up a successful medical center in my home town and he had joined the practice.

The National health bureau had found out the fact later and had filed a case against Y… I think the case would be finally over and Y would eventually get his IC here in Taiwan. It was a mistake for the home ministry to issue a quasi naturalization certificate to him enabling him to renounce his Malaysian citizenship. The parliament is currently trying to amend the act so that a foreigner would be granted citizenship first and later renounce his other citizenship within a reasonable time frame. There are also other amendment being carried to the discussion – dual citizenship is allow… although the chance is slim for the amendment to pass, but I would closely follow up the progression….