Between Tolerance and Recognition

This paper addresses one specific and severely overlooked group within South Korea's asylumsystem: refugee applicants who hold no Alien Registration Card (ARC) and possess only asingle document — the Permission for Extension of Departure Order (출국 연장 허가 /출국연장허가). These individuals are acknowledged by the state as physically present, butdenied every institutional right that physical presence should confer.These are working-age adults with documented labour capacity, whose asylum appeals remainunder active legal examination, and who face well-founded, life-threatening risks if returned totheir countries of origin. They are, in every practical sense, a workforce already present onKorean soil — yet structurally prevented from contributing to an economy that urgently needsthem.