Migrant workers and human rights activists hold a press conference in front of Seoul's National Police Agency, Wednesday, to urge the authorities to investigate Park Jin-jae, a candidate of the minor Jayu Party in the April 10 general elections, on his alleged "manhunt" for undocumented immigrants. Newsis

Migrant advocacy groups from across the country urged the police to arrest and investigate a far-right political candidate who has been unlawfully targeting migrants and to protect the constitutional rights of foreign nationals, Wednesday.

A coalition of human rights groups held a press conference in front of the National Police Agency in Seoul to urge the police to investigate Park Jin-jae of the minor far-right Jayu Party regarding his alleged illegal detention of and aggressive behavior toward migrants. Park is currently running for a seat in Daegu's Buk A-constituency in the April 10 general elections

According to the group, Park and Citizen's Protection Solidarity, a far-right civic group he belongs to, have forcibly interrogated and randomly illegally detained foreign nationals they assumed to be unregistered or undocumented migrants whom they believed needed to be handed over to police.

The ultraright group is led by Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon of the Christian Council of Korea who also serves as a pastor for Sarang Jeil Church. Park has been a vocal opponent of the construction of a mosque in the southern city of Daegu and made numerous xenophobic remarks, according to the group.

Notably, the candidate has uploaded videos of the so-called "arrests" on YouTube and TikTok and exposed the identities of the supposedly undocumented migrants without their consent.

The group criticized Park as a "manhunter" who infringed on the police's authority and argued that he committed hate crimes against minorities based on a supremacist agenda similar to that of the Ku Klux Klan of the United States.

"The government should legalize the status of undocumented migrants and take due administrative procedures to protect their rights," the advocacy groups said in a joint statement, urging the police to arrest and investigate Park.

Park's alleged aggressive and threatening behavior, breaking into people's homes and illegally detaining foreign nationals are all violations of fundamental rights granted in the Korean Constitution, according to a human rights lawyer.

"Regardless of one's nationality and infringement of immigration laws, everyone in Korea has the right to human dignity and liberty under the Constitution," said Choi Jung-kyu, a lawyer leading the coalition.

Therefore, one can claim that Park committed a hate crime as he detained and questioned foreign nationals at random and forced them to show him their identification cards, the lawyer and the group noted.

The group also pointed out that Korea's immigration policy leads to hateful sentiment against undocumented migrant workers despite their contribution to the domestic economy.

"Migrant workers are here because Korea's society needs them and they are members of this society, like the rest of us," Udaya Rai, the head of the Migrants' Trade Union, said. Yet, Korea's immigration policies keep them in an undocumented status scenario in inhumane working conditions and treat them as criminals, he said.

According to the Ministry of Justice, there are over 400,000 undocumented immigrants in Korea as of 2023.