Here a rant by my favorite gaijin fruitcake, crank/social activist and naturalized Japanese citizen, David Aldwinckle aka "DEBITO ARUDOU.
A banner hanging in Shinagawa Station announces "Measures Targeting Illegal Foreign Workers Month," sponsored by the Tokyo ImmigrationBureau, for June."
VISA VILLAINS
Immigration law overdoes enforcement, penaltiesBy DEBITO ARUDOU
The Japan Times, June 29
.... On May 27, Japan's Diet amended the "Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act," enacting stricter punishments. The maximum fine for visa expiry increases tenfold from 300,000 yen to 3 million yen. Banishment from Japan doubles from five to 10 years. Those who come clean at Immigration before being caught will merely be deported faster.
This is on top of already-tough detention conditions: Several days confined to a room with other criminals (sometimes at a daily charge of 60,000 yen). Access denied to family, a consulate, or even a lawyer.
What's going on? The National Police Agency claims that hordes of illegal aliens (estimated somehow at 250,000) are ratcheting up Japan's crime rate...
... But do the new punishments fit the crime? After all, equating overstayers with hardened criminal activity (like burglary or murder) overstates the seriousness of the matter.
"Overstaying" in itself is a bureaucratic procedure, not necessarily a willful act to deprive others of life, liberty, or property. ...
... So let's get this straight. People thrive by bringing foreigners here, give them lousy conditions and few civil protections, and then blame them for rising crime numbers? A full third of which are not "hard crimes," but rather visa violations -- often instigated by Japanese?
Any hope for some improvements? Not ...

On the flip side, a good friend and colleague is overstaying his US visa currently... he's a Japanese national, and not long out of college... but the dates were funky and his parents dropped the ball to get him a green card / naturalized with them. His sister, a few years younger, was young enough that she got grandfathered in with his parents. Poor kid hasn't lived in Japan since he was 6. I don't blame him for not wanting to go back now.

Cortana wrote:On the flip side, a good friend and colleague is overstaying his US visa currently...his parents dropped the ball to get him a green card / naturalized with them.... Poor kid hasn't lived in Japan since he was 6.

Gee, that's a Throw-Money-at-it problem.

If he wants to do it on his own or on the cheap, he's in a Heap-o-Trouble(tm). On the other hand, this is just the regular old day-in-day-out job for a well-connected immigration laywer.

Bottom Line: 'bout 5 to 6,000 bucks well spent.

What kind of fucked up, backward, peasant-minded fucking country has a 'Look out for illegal immigrants campaign month'!?

Further evidence that there is no rule of law, no understanding of human rights, and definitely no democracy in Japan. If there were, there would not be such perverted, punitive, racist 'campaigns'.

some countries have this 12 months a year. i guess japan is very new at this...

What a nice way to welcome ""Yokoso! Japan" tourists.

Welcome, but make sure you get the f*ck out.

If I got put in the slammer for overstaying a fucking visa, as soon as I got out, I'd blow up a fucking building.. or something really destructive, and then hop on the first plane out of Japan... That'd give them a real crime to try to bust me over.

katakori wrote:some countries have this 12 months a year. i guess japan is very new at this...

Don't kid yourself... Japan is the original 'expel the barbarian' country dude... the dickhead bureacrats may only get around to sticking up there banners in Shinagawa station once every now and then, but the foreigner-unfriendly policy is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

What kind of fucked up, backward, peasant-minded fucking country has a 'Look out for illegal immigrants campaign month'!?

America?

Big Booger wrote:If I got put in the slammer for overstaying a fucking visa, as soon as I got out, I'd blow up a fucking building.. or something really destructive, and then hop on the first plane out of Japan... That'd give them a real crime to try to bust me over.

Now listen here BIG BOOGER, JET teachers are supposed to be ambassadors to Japan and behave as role models for their students. That doesn't include pullin' a bin Laden

AssKissinger wrote:

Big Booger wrote:If I got put in the slammer for overstaying a fucking visa, as soon as I got out, I'd blow up a fucking building.. or something really destructive, and then hop on the first plane out of Japan... That'd give them a real crime to try to bust me over.

Now listen here BIG BOOGER, JET teachers are supposed to be ambassadors to Japan and behave as role models for their students. That doesn't include pullin' a bin Laden

I'm busted.. Damn, I guess I'll just resort to vandalism then.

YaleGlobal: Hard Work, Furtive Living: Illegal Immigrants in Japan
A ski cap pulled low to conceal her wavy brown hair, Luz Martinez stands near Kawasaki Station, hoping to avoid any appearance of loitering in the busy terminal regularly staked out by Japanese immigration officials. After 11 years of illegal work in low-paid jobs, Martinez has become adept at blending in with the crowd. She is one of an estimated 220,000 illegal migrants who live in Japan, most of them workers from China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Latin America. She was fired from her last job, packing fruit for a Dole Japan affiliate. After 16 months, she took a sick day and was told not to show up again. Martinez (which is not her real name) and her fellow foreign laborers experience the flip side of the polite, safe Japan that Western tourists and foreign business people encounter. Japanese society extends little protection from exploitation for powerless illegal immigrants...more...

While i was at the local Hello Work, there was a guy there who looked south-american, flicking through a phone-book thick folder of jobs. I asked about it - they were all 700-1000 yen cleaning or factory jobs - about a hundred of them in Fukuoka alone.

Considering how cheap labour is in China, the Phillipines or Indonesia, it's no wonder there's a cheap labour issue.