Update on Noriko Calderon

Remember there was no complusion for Noriko to remain in Japan: she was and is free to join her parents. The only other option would be to allow her parents to remain. It’s not as if she is living with a complete stranger or never sees her parents either.

It does, because part of the choice was Noriko’s. She also had options, and she chose to compromise.

Noriko was in a situation where she could have access to either her parents or her familiar environment, but not both. I don’t think it’s the government’s role to dictate to individuals which is more important to them.

@helical
I don’t think it’s the government’s role to dictate to individuals which is more important to them.

Neither do I. I am pretty sure no one outside of maybe North Korea would think that. But it is their responsibility to decide and enact public policy, which they more or less refused to do in this case, as I stated above. Will this “decision” be useful as a precedent or policy guideline for much of anything? Very doubtful. Future “atypical” cases that pop up will likely all have to go through the same pointless navel gazing and media frenzy as this one, with final non-decisive compromises that end up costing more and making the JGovt look worse each time. This will continue until Japan develops policy. There are other areas where japan lacks sorely-needed policies for want of decision-making and leadership, so its perhaps not surprising.

So did you reasonably expect they would actually allow her parents to remain?

“making the JGovt look worse”

In your eyes?
There is already a huge “case-by-case” aspect to immigration law, so it is clear that the GOJ’s policy is not to have a totally unified policy.

What? Illegally transferred goods and services are still that, Illegal. Selling illegal drugs is not acceptable behavior, Hiring an assassin is not acceptable behavior, and immigrating illegally is not acceptable behavior.

leitmotiv, so you say using different person’s passport was OK when they came to Japan. I do not have a word.

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=7401
“Calderon’s father, Arlan, 36, came to Japan in May 1993, a year after her mother moved to Japan. Both of them entered the country on a different person’s passport.”

What leitmotive said is that there was apparently tacit agreement between business groups and govt to generally ignore the laws in large part and generally look the other way,
So I guess he is saying, in this case, that the government looked the other way on their fake passports.
The problem is: (1) Is it based on evidences? and (2)is his assertion about the tacit agreement between business groups and govt based on evidences? Or is it just in his vivid imagination?

For my part, I’ve never read articles about immigrants officers turning a blind eye on their fake passport and fake IDs nor about the tacit agreement between JG and business groups. So I am curious.

Also: the Calderons would have arrived in Japan in 1993, the year before I did, and the economy sucked. They were caught in 2006, when Japan was actually doing alright. They were facing deportation well before everything blew up at the end of last year.

So much for the “needed low-wage workers” getting caught and thrown out “when economic times changed” – someone has things exactly 180 degrees backward.