I've served my drug sentence in Korea and I'm about to be deported — my Korean partner and my apartment are here. Is there any way to stay, or to come back?

Deportation after a served drug sentence is not "automatic" in the sense of being imposed without a decision, but it is the ordinary outcome for a foreign national convicted of a narcotics sale offense, and marriage to a Korean does not prevent it. What marriage can affect is the review that follows years later, when you apply to have the ban lifted. Your property is not confiscated by deportation; it remains yours, and it can be managed and sold from Australia through counsel — but it is far easier to set that up in the weeks before release than from immigration custody or from Sydney. The ban is set for years, not for life; the path back exists and runs through the Ministry of Justice's discretion, and it is wider for a person who leaves in order and returns to a documented life.

Deportation and marriage

Under Article 46 of the Immigration Act (출입국관리법, chulipguk gwalli-beop), a foreign national convicted of a narcotics offense is within the grounds for deportation (강제퇴거, gangje toego); a sale conviction with a served sentence is at the serious end. The Immigration Office may take a person released from a correctional institution into immigration detention (보호, boho) pending removal, which is what you have been told. A deportation order can be objected to before the Minister of Justice within seven days and challenged in the administrative court, with an application to suspend execution; in a case of this profile the prospects are limited, and you have said you accept leaving. That is a reasonable position; the objection process is more useful for shaping the ban than for stopping removal.

Marrying a Korean national now does not create a right to remain; spouse status is applied for from a lawful position, not asserted against a deportation order, and the Immigration Office weighs a marriage entered on the eve of removal accordingly. Where marriage matters is later: a Korean spouse is among the humanitarian grounds considered in an application to lift or shorten an entry ban, and a marriage that predates removal, with a registered record, is a stronger fact than one that follows it. Whether to marry before you leave is a decision to make with that in mind and with an immigration specialist's view; we coordinate that as part of the case.

Your property

Deportation is an immigration measure; it does not touch your civil rights. The apartment remains yours, the mortgage remains your obligation, and the car and accounts remain your property. What changes is your ability to act: signing a sale contract, dealing with the bank, transferring the car, closing accounts. All of it can be done by a person outside Korea through a power of attorney (위임장, wiimjang), but a power of attorney signed in Korea before release avoids the notarization-and-apostille step from abroad, and a management arrangement — who pays the mortgage, who holds the keys, who lists the apartment — should be in place before you are moved.

Do it now, from detention, through counsel: a power of attorney covering the sale of the apartment, the car and the accounts; instructions on the mortgage; and a plan for your girlfriend's role, if any, that is documented rather than assumed. If she is to manage the apartment, put it in writing; goodwill under stress is not a legal arrangement.

The ban and the path back

An entry ban (입국금지, ipguk geumji) under Article 11 follows deportation, with a duration set at the time on guidelines that scale with the offense; a served narcotics sentence is in the range that carries a multi-year ban. After a period, an application to lift or shorten it may be made to the Ministry of Justice, on humanitarian and rehabilitative grounds: a Korean spouse or family, a clean record since, evidence of a settled life, and the purpose of the visit. Those applications are decided in discretion; they are granted, and they are granted more readily to people whose Korean record ends cleanly — sentence served, property settled, departure on the date, no overstay in immigration detention disputes. The Immigration Office decides; we do not predict.

MEGA X's involvement arises from the criminal case; the objection and any court challenge are litigation we handle as part of it, coordinating with an immigration specialist on the status and ban-lift questions.

What to do now, and what not to do

This month: the power of attorney; the property plan; the objection, if only to place your circumstances on the record for the ban decision; the marriage decision, made with advice. Do not plan to overstay in detention through serial applications; a clean departure is the asset. Keep every document — judgment, release certificate, deportation order with its ban notation — for the application years from now.

Practical insight

Deported foreigners lose their Korean property not to the state but to disorder: a mortgage unpaid, an apartment unlisted, a car impounded, accounts frozen for inactivity. The weeks before release are the window; the power of attorney is the instrument; and the girlfriend, however loyal, needs authority on paper, not a promise in a visiting room.

Contact us from detention through the institution's legal-visit procedure, or have your partner call +82-2-522-3959 or use the text consultation form.

— Hyeonghwan Chon, Managing Partner, MEGA X Law Firm Korea