We are 100s of foreigners from all over the world who were travelling to Taiwan for a variety of different reasons and we have been super LUCKY to have found ourselves in Taiwan, the safest place in the world, during the current world wide Covid-19 pandemic. The virus has made it extremely difficult to travel anywhere else and highly not advisable and fortunately Taiwan has extended our tourist visas to keep us protected and safe, which we are most grateful for, as for many of us going back to your countries right now could mean putting our health, and our loved ones, at risk.

However, we didn’t budget for this long a stay and during this extended time provided by the Taiwanese Government, we need to earn money to sustain ourselves, but we do not have right to work under such visas, therefore unable to sustain ourselves and pay for our own housing and food until the world returns to normal.

We have created this petition to ask for a temporary permission to work legitimately.

We respectfully ask that the Taiwanese government to take one more humane and logical step needed to meet this moment and design an International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) to meet the needs imposed by this pandemic that has impacted all of our lives in many unforeseen ways. Once the infected countries have made a significant progress in recovering from Covid-19, their citizens will no longer continue to meet the conditions for designation.

We are willing to work and have been persistently looking for jobs, some of us don’t even get interviewed, because not holding a ARC, others found companies that are willing to sponsor them but working permits applications got denied, once, twice, sometimes even multiple times.

After trying all available options, including consulting with our trade and cultural and immigration offices with no positive outcome, we came together to seek further help.

As a result, we are kindly asking the possibility to be flexible or adjust some of the hiring restrictions and suggest to: 

-  Provide covid19-temporary-working-permit or working holiday visas

- Relax, delay & or diversify requirements for background checks (there is a serious delay on getting this from most governments).

- Simplifying hiring processes, providing a pre-approval-to-hire-documentation (so that employers are more confident in beginning their end of the process) 

- Open unskilled job opportunities.

- Give us the opportunity to enrol in Chinese Language courses issuing Student Visas

- Evaluate the possibility to enrol us as a network to help, promote and value Taiwan worldwide, through the Tourism Bureau creating a series of contents for future income.

 

Extending our visas was a thoughtful action but many of us will not be able to afford a ticket out of the country once it will be safe to leave.

Please see below links to a temporary protected status designed for Haiti in 2010 by the US government as an example:

https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status/temporary-protected-status-designated-country-haiti

https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article146104144.ece/binary/End-of-TPS-recommendation.pdf

Some of our stories:

Maria Lea - 31 - Argentina 

“…I was travelling through Taiwan, my plan was to go to Australia on April 16th but they close they borders, I have been looking for a job for 2 months but no one is willing to sponsor my working permit, I’m running out of money and certainly my family can’t support me under lockdown…”

 

Tolga - 23 - Turkey

Sammy - 27 - Lebanon

“…we came here for travelling and then the epidemic went worse and when they put us in quarantine we had to spent all our budget on quarantine hotel. Because our countries are lockdown we cannot go back and we cannot receive anything so we are looking for jobs… we can do anything, cleaning, cooking, teaching, babysitting anything you want us to do…”

 

Mary - 30 - Italy

“…I was travelling the world for few months and came to Taiwan to visit a friend before going back to work in London, I had the budget to stay for a month when realised , I then looked for a job in every corner so I could support myself but all my working permit applications got refused…a kind taiwanese girl let me stay in her tiny apartment and offered me her sofa that I shared with her dog for over 2 months to save money..”

 

Ruben Ignacio - Chile

“…we were supposed to travel to New Zealand as we both got a Working Holiday visa for it. Less than two months in, and it was chaos around the world, New Zealand's borders are shut until further notice and there no way I can go back home as South America is quite dangerous at this moment, because of the virus and other political issues as well. Just like you guys, I've been struggling to get a proper job. I do not speak Mandarin, and although I was an English teacher back in Chile, they will only hire native speakers. Money it's never enough without a job…and I literally have nowhere to go…Not happy with the idea of overstaying my permit..”

 

Alice - France

“…I quit everything in my country to travel around the world for one year and my first step was Taiwan this February... I couldn’t go anywhere else and I’m quite hopeless as the situation in my country is pretty bad. Having a job here could help me save money waiting for coming back home…”

 

…and hundreds of others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEdfgYMcxUM

We appreciate any help you will be able to give us.

Thank you 

"Stuck in Taiwan - Best place to be" facebook group