Refugees stuck in Detention Center

When I was studying in university, my friend started a volunteer group to support refugees in Japan. He invited me to his team, and I learned some basic facts of how they are treated under Japanese legal system.

Not a criminal.

I met some asylum seekers stuck in Immigration Center in Osaka. Some of them were from Middle East, the others were from Africa. They escaped their country because their family members were killed by a terrorist group with some political/religious reasons.

One of them was running away from his home and running around jungle for a few weeks to escape from a terrorist attack.
No time to bring his passport because his family members were killed and his house was burned down.
He ended up creating a fake passport to run away from his country.
No time to choose which country to go.

When I saw him for the first time, he was stuck in a detention center because he entered Japan with a fake passport.

Many asylum seekers are in the similar situation, and they have hard time proving themselves that they were in danger back in their countries.

Any proof?

They had no time to bring any certificate, documents or photos to prove they were in danger. Nobody can prepare any kinds of documentations while their family members are getting killed by extremists.

I read a book written by an immigration specialist who devoted himself into supporting asylum seekers in Japan. The book was over 300 pages, and he repeatedly wrote the frustration and anger that he felt while helping them.

The refugee acceptance rate in Japan is only 0.2%.
Recently NHK started to capture the life of refugees living in Japan to tell the truth. The attitude of Immigration Bureau was very strict.

The government has maintained that the majority of the applicants are “fake refugees” who are attempting to use their application status to get work permits, which the government had previously issued unconditionally six months after a person applied for asylum. The government restricted that system in January last year. [Reference: World Refugee Day: How well is Japan fulfilling its obligations in 2019?]

Sobbing, but couldn’t help

When I went to see them to learn their lives in Japan, I had less than 30 minutes to talk with them. We talked over the transparent plastic board.
Some of my teammates brought snacks for them, but we could not even hand it in to them directly.

They had no choice to escape from their country, but they were treated like criminals. Only 30 minutes to go outside and do sunbathing each day. For the rest of the day, they stay in a room with several asylum seekers from different countries.

Some of them died in a detention center because they chose to kill themselves rather than being trapped in the center forever.

One of the asylum seekers were sobbing in front of me behind the transparent plastic board. I was 20 years old at the time, and he was over 50 years old.

“Powerless” is the best word to describe. I had no idea how to contribute for them.

Theoretically learning immigration law

As I met many entrepreneurs from abroad I started studying immigration law as well as some legal flows relating to the application for asylum seekers.

The more I know, the better I understand Immigration Bureau is still the branch of a police division in the government just like when it was originally structured after WWII. Some people think Immigration Bureau is right under the Foreign Affairs Bureau, but it is not true.

Even if the organization changed the name and started having a bigger division in the government, how it works does not change so quickly because organizations create cultures, and the cultures stay for quite a long time.

I guess, this is one of the reasons that I couldn’t just leave my friends struggling to get the right information about visa because I know what would possibly happen to them if the status does not suit the legal system.
That scares me sometimes, and my friends are scared more for sure.

I don’t know the clue for the asylum seekers yet, but at least it helps me to try to do my best to give the right and proper answers for my clients.

The rule around visa is still ambiguous and it takes time to understand the legal structure, so there’s few legal advisors who can give a good answers for visa-related questions because theory does not matter and only their actual practices do matter.

Everybody talks about whether Japan becomes an international society or not. I personally hope that Japan gradually starts accepting international community because that’s the first step to open up a door for asylum seekers.