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
You ought to talk to legal Japanese residents in the USA who are ESL students, and get their frank opinion about the illegal alien students (primarily from Latin America) whom co-inhabit their classes.
You will hear the same thing in any ESL class in any part of the USA, coming from Japanese.
I am with you friend, (on the issue) about Rudy Guiliani, regarding illegal immigration. I am with you.
How dare the Japanese keep Japan to themselves?!?
President Bush would have been foolish to not understand that his comments would be picked up in Mexico and relayed throughout there and Latin America in Spanish for all to see.
They were a literal MAGNET to illegal aliens to come here since 2000. Millions of them since September 11, 2007 alone. And further, they emboldened those firmly ensconced on US soil already as illegal inhabitants, if not enabled the sense of entitlement to be here and get benefits out the wazoo. And we had to pay for it all.
Did Bozo ever realize his words were a MAGNET to such lawlessness and disregard for the laws and sovereignty of our Nation??
Maybe they can establish an "East Asian Poverty Law Center" or something like that.
Yep. And they damn well know it to.
Every mosque in Japan is watched very closely and I would not be surprised if every sermon at those mosques or meeting halls is taped, translated and carefully analyzed.
If there are any islamofascists here in Japan, and I would be surprised if there wasn’t, they are keeping very quiet and doing everything they can NOT to attract attention.
This is Japan, and no matter how many foreigners there are in Tokyo (just a handful compared to most other places) they are all watched. Even white middle-aged business types like you and me. Not to say there is a cop or spy trailing us. But we stand out and are always noticed where ever we go.
And yes, there is the racist aspect of Japanese culture as well. Japanese as a whole do NOT like foreigners. Americans are tolerated because we won the war, Chinese and Koreans are actively disliked, but as far as Arabs and other races? Active loathing comes closest.
That, and post 9-11, fear and distrust.
There are strong elements in the National Police that would purely love a limited terrorist attack here just so they COULD round up every brown face and ship them all out.
Let Amnesty International squawk. Let the Europeans protest to their hearts content. It wouldn’t bother the Japanese a single bit.
;-)
/just kidding
In which case you would be followed everywhere by those kinky pencil-necked, thick-glasses, mouth-breathing geeks that infest Akihabara.
The Japs are my kind of xenophobes! We should learn from them.
“Did Bozo ever realize his words were a MAGNET to such lawlessness and disregard for the laws and sovereignty of our Nation??”
How many times in the past 6+ years has Bush made speeches
which included the mantra “just doing the jobs Americans won’t do”?(notwithstanding the fact that 75 percent of those jobs were currently being done by Americans) Bush must have said this 40-50 times.
The WORST thing he ever said was “We need to match willing workers(illegal trespassers) with willing employers(crooks)”
Bush prosecutes Border Patrol agents, gives immunity to major illegal drug dealers, and calls the Minutemen “vigilantes”.
Bush hire dutiful lackeys like Chertoff and Gonzales to do his dirty work for him. He then enlists the aid of leftist scum like Kennedy to help RAM through “Amnesty”. He failed because by this time, illegals had damaged or almost destroyed 100 towns across America, and we finally fought back.
End of story? Hardly. Now we have Mexican trucks travelling all over the country with unknown cargo........
unknown because orders have come down from the top that if the lines at the border are “too long”, only the drivers I D will be checked. This will allow massive illegal immigration and massive amounts of illegal drugs to continue to flow into the USA.
When it comes to illegal immigration and our border, we might get a better shake from Hugo Chavez!!
Former commander of the Argentine fleet?
Mexican drug cartels have an assembly line even Henry Ford would envy. Poverty-stricken latino hamburger flippers and lettuce pickers pay huge amounts to get over the border from Mexican staging areas.
They can now pour into the US, traveling in the comfort of cartel trucks. They pay their way over carrying and selling drugs in the US.
MORE IMPORTANTLY: We need to find out if Western Union is laundering illegal drug monies thru the massive $50 billion transmissions these suckers are sending back to their moth-eaten countries.
(BTW, I keep wondering if the Bush family counted the family silverware when little George's nanny went to Mexico for a visit. Mamacita now lives in the WH---yikes.)
Au khun chiraan, AIT.
Domo arigato gozaimasu AND do itashi mashite.
(What is "and" in Japanese?)
Pronounced "sew shtay".
Thank goodness he is on his way out.
He may be even more bold in the closing few months of his regime, and take away more of our individual freedoms, saddle us with more taxes, and evaporate more of our sovereignty. I am afraid of it, through executive dictate, primarily, all in the hopes of pursuing "legacy".
“They can now pour into the US, traveling in the comfort of cartel trucks. They pay their way over carrying and selling drugs in the US”
Bingo!!
“I am afraid of it, through executive dictate, primarily, all in the hopes of pursuing “legacy”.”
Left unchecked, Bush’s legacy will be the end of our sovereignty!
So the correct sentence would be:
Domo arigato gozaimasu soshite do itashi mashite.
??
I don't think I'll ever have the need for Japanese, but I have a dozen or so of the Rosetta Stone language CDs, Japanese is one of them and I haven't reviewed it in years.
It is gramatically correct, but sounds a little odd strung together that way. You probably would not add the “and” in a Japanese sense. Japanese is a tough one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.