Posted on 09/10/2007 1:04:55 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
JAPAN: Japan Web site irks illegal aliens Shoddy statistics along with unbalanced news reporting have led to a climate of scapegoating in which visa overstayers are increasingly seen as dangerous
Taipei Times Friday, May 7, 2004
The Web site of Japan's Immigration Bureau has never been particularly foreigner-friendly: information about almost everything, from obtaining a visa to getting deported, is available only in Japanese.
But foreigners say the site's newest feature is downright nasty.
The bureau this year began soliciting tips over the Internet about suspected illegal aliens, enlisting the public in a high-profile deportation campaign ordered by authorities who say foreigners are to blame for a surge in crime in Japan.
"What's next -- paid informers?" asked Osvaldo Yamamoto, 30, a welder from Brazil. "Nobody wants to overstay their visa, but everybody wants a chance to work. Reporting on these people is a worse crime."
The online tip-off system, which started in February, is the latest in a series of measures announced by authorities in a campaign to halve the estimated 250,000 illegal aliens in Japan over the next five years.
Raids and roundups of illegals have multiplied, and visa requirements are becoming more strict. Employers and even language schools that sponsor foreigners are under heightened surveillance. About 50,000 foreigners were deported last year for visa violations.
Authorities say they're just keeping the streets safe, echoing police, conservative politicians and media reports alleging that foreigners are behind a surge in crime that's rocking the foundations of law and order.
"It's shaken people's belief they are living in the safest country in the world," said Hidenori Sakanaka, Tokyo's top immigration official. "We can't ignore this situation."
Authorities cite some scary-sounding statistics.
Arrests of foreigners jumped 23 percent last year, hitting a record high for a third straight year. Over half of those nabbed were illegal aliens, and almost two-thirds of crimes by foreigners involved groups of two or more.
The figures got a chilling -- and widely publicized -- illustration last year when several Chinese students were arrested for murdering a Japanese family, ransacking their house and throwing their handcuffed bodies into a bay.
Rights groups, however, see something different: a disturbing trend toward scapegoating in a country where foreigners make up less than 2 percent of the population of 127 million.
"The overwhelming majority of people who break the law in this country are Japanese, but nobody would dream of asking for tips about suspicious Japanese," said Shinichiro Nakashima, a member of Kumustaka, a support group for foreign workers in southern Japan.
Nakashima points to a fact rarely mentioned in the same breath as foreign crime: While the total number of crimes reported in Japan has risen to record highs for seven of the last eight years, the foreigners' share remains as tiny as their numbers.
Last year's headline-making figure of 40,615 offenses by foreigners amounted to 1.45 percent of the total. Most illegal aliens were arrested for a charge with no impact on public safety: overstaying their visas.
The Internet tip-off system has become a flash point for foreign anger. Groups ranging from Amnesty International to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan have blasted it for encouraging the public to look at all foreigners as potential criminals and called for a general amnesty for illegal aliens.
Overstayers talk about a sense of betrayal. Ismail, a 43-year-old electrician from Pakistan who spoke on condition that his full name not be used, was invited to Japan in 1992 as a trainee for an electronics company. He stayed on after his visa expired, moving from job to job. Now he fears deportation may be a mouse click away.
"We are not criminals, we are not losers," Ismail said. "We are working all day but there is no peace for us."
Wariness of outsiders has a long history in Japan. The country emerged from 200 years of self-imposed isolation only in the mid-19th century. Since then, generations of Japanese schoolchildren were taught to think of themselves as a "single-race nation," though the phrase is politically incorrect today.
Sakanaka said his agency is merely doing its duty. But the outcry over the online tip-off system forced authorities to add a disclaimer acknowledging most foreigners are "law-abiding."
Date Posted: 5/7/2004
A bit old of a story, but a classic. Indeed a classic.
"No human is illegal!".
¿Comprendes?
(si se puedes!)
/sarc :-)
Oh, are you ever going to get a kick out of THIS
Wouldn't want to be caught as an illegal in Japan ; but then I wouldn't want to be caught as an illegal in Mexico either.
The irony of the whole thing is that I would wager things are more difficult on a illegal alien in Mexico, compared to an illegal alien in Japan!
Mexicans authorities like to give themselves plenty of, ahem, "latitude" in dealing with a variety of cases.
Seems to me they've come a long way. : )
I wouldn't consider "learning Japanese" a hardship for an immigrant to the nation, particularly if they chose to go there.
All the (forgive me) "whiney, knee-bent, running about advancing type behavior" gives "gai-jins" a bad name.
A massive move to deport illegals in Japan, ordered by the central government, would stand a very thin chance of being struck down by Japanese courts.
Of course, in the USA, it is near anarchy at times, it seems, in trying to get the damn law simply enforced.
Of course, Mexicans in Mexico couldn't care less about the plight of illegals in their own country.
very self-centered, and filled with extreme entitlement beyond belief, all in one fell swoop. such is the illegal alien, particuarly from Mexico
Chinga los illegal aliens pendejo.
No soy un pendejo, pendejo! ;>P
Hey, I have no problem at all with this website.
Japan took careful note of what unrestricted immigration did to Europe and the US and have decided that it is NOT going to happen here.
Sorry Osvaldo, but Japan gets to decide who gets to live in Japan. They implement this policy by granting visas. If yours expired you have to get a new one or leave. It's as simple as that.
It should be as simple as that in the United States, but it is not.
If paid informers is the best way to get results, then paid informers is a good idea. Reporting somebody who is breaking the law is never a crime, as long as the law is not grossly unjust. Restrictive immigration laws are not unjust at all.
The Japanese are not stupid. They will keep Japan for the Japanese and don’t care one whit about the “racist” label.
Paid informants are probably more effective and motivated than salaried ICE investigators.
That stated, Japanese are traditionally very bigoted when it comes to 'race,' though Osvaldo seems to be at least partially of Japanese descent, though suspect non-Japanese-ancestry aliens who are being targeted.
Seriously. It needs that much explanation. Even after a good explanation, some Japanese friends will be scratching their heads.
"But gee, AIT-san. I still don't get it. Wouldn't that mean for such people to advocate that for their own country that it is like calling for national suicide??"
Bingo!!!We have a winner.
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