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Comment by miahi | Hacker News Reader

I keep hearing about this "passport kept hostage" problem. What keeps you from going to your embassy and reporting the passport missing or stolen? As the passport is not your property but is actually the property of the issuing country, a company or even another country's government cannot hold the passport without causing trouble.

That hostage-passport can only hold if there is something else going on, like working without a permit (when the workers know their status and fear the punishment if they go to the embassy).

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You can't get punished by your embassy for working in another country illegally. As far as getting a replacement passport, that's no problem. The passport hostage taking will prevent you from staying in the country or being able to get another job in the country because while you can get a new passport, you can't easily get a new visa. It's actually against Korean labor law to withhold a passport however a foreigner has little chance of winning that fight because they delay the process effectively leaving you without a job and the ability to get a new work visa from another employer while the process drags along.

In the old days (a few years ago,) you couldn't even leave the country unless your employer released you from your visa. Trying to exit without a visa can get you detained an heavily fined. So keeping your passport has the practical effect of keeping you stranded because you can't get a replacement visa for the new passport without the employer's permission. Korean immigration is a mess.

You haven't explained why someone in this bizarre scenario where they have given their passport to their employer can't simply go to their embassy and have the matter straightened out in a day.

You obviously haven't traveled internationally very much or you are being deliberately obtuse (or both).

I'll explain anyway: Many countries have some sort of passport control both when you enter and when you leave the country. The reasons for this are varied, but a common one is to make sure you didn't overstay your visa. As a result, you need to have a valid visa attached to your passport to pass through passportcontrol to exit the country. It is almost never sufficient to have been issued a visa to pass through passport control. You almost always need the one physical piece of paper that is the physical manifestation of the visa.

If your employer has your passport, they also have the visa which was stapled to it. Your embassy can easily get you a replacement passport, but a replacement visa is up to the host country.

Your two options to leave are: 1) Ask your former employer for your passport and visa. 2) Go through some (or a lot, to judge from the other comments) bureaucracy to get a new visa.

Wait, so the process to discourage you from overstaying your Visa is to hold you in the country longer?

While this is all true - stolen passports are a very real problem, and when I had mine stolen, and got a replacement, it clearly said on one of the first pages "This passport replaces passport #XXXXXXX reported stolen on DATE".

Yes, I lost all my visa/entry stamps.... and yes, that can be a problem - but the fact is, a nation is unlikely to hold you hostage and create a diplomatic incident because your passport has been stolen.

You might not be close to your local Embassy, and in many countries you need your passport to fly domestically and even stay in hotels. So just getting to your embassy without a passport might be non-trivial.

Also you might actually want to stay and work in the country, and kicking up a fuss over a 'stolen' passport is a sure fire way to get your visa canceled.

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