Arresting illegal immigrants in Japan
October 5th, 2009 by James
Two clips from an Japanese TV show that followed around police officers in Kanagawa as they arrested illegal immigrants:
It is interesting to note that the first clip ends with the revelation that the two illegal immigrants had a child in Japan who is now attending elementary school. This would mean that the child is undocumented and will be treated as an illegal alien and deported along with her parents. This report aired a couple months ago, and I haven’t seen any news stories about the child. It would seem she was probably deported without any major dispute. I’m guessing it was because she is considerably younger than Noriko Calderon and probably didn’t enjoy the level of community support that locals gave to the Calderon family.
The second clip is about a raid on an apartment rented through an illegal broker service. An Asahi article about brokers that rent apartments for illegal immigrants can be found archived on Debito.org (the Asahi does not maintain a public archive of its web articles).
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I find the approach to dealing with illegal immigration to be fairly ass-backwards. A lot of money and manpower are being wasted in hunting down, deporting, and seeking ways to keep them from arriving in the first place. And it never prevents them from finding a way back in.
It would make more sense to target the businesses and citizens who employ them. The people who create the demand the illegal immigrants fill.
But even that is a wasted opportunity. These illegal immigrants show that there is a willing body of workers who will happily take on the low skill, low paying, and low respect jobs the locals normally wont. It should be made easier for them to get guest worker status, and more difficult/unattractive for employers to hire illegals.
What makes you sink that they are doing “low skill, low paying, and low respect jobs” ? I did not watch it all, but second illegal lived in decent western style house. I observe that these Asian communities are pretty entrepreneurial.
Are you claiming they’re arriving wealthy and just not bothering with the paperwork? Or, is it the old conservative saw that illegals are all in organized crime?
Perhaps some are, but most are not.
William George,
You assume there is no effort made for that? The above TV show tells us only a part of this issue. Anyway, the reality can be more complicated. There might be an illegal broker service to make an illegal immigrants look more legal, a business involved in forgery and camouflage. Then, brokers can also help them to find a job since they may know many possible employers for those suspicious immigrant workers, who often employ illegal workers at the risk of closing their business. Thus, it might be far easier and more effective to hunt brokers and inspect their cellphone than visiting many companies and asking if they employ illegal workers. Also note that the typical people, who create the demand the illegal immigrants fill, are said to be running a small and medium-sized factory. The total number of such factories and enterprises are, in my opinion, far greater than that of illegal immigration broker organizations.
Illegal brokers often presume on illegal immigrant’s weakness and demand an absurd payment. It’s sometimes not just an illegal immigrant issue but also an issue of a human rights violation.
I don’t know what “guest worker status” exactly means here. Does it mean legal status of short stay worker with a wage under the minimum wage and restricted rights and duties? If so, I can say nothing as I can’t infer the effects of it at all.
It does seem like this is an incredibly ineffective use of man power. What did they have like 8 officers to arrest one family? The thing I found most strange about this report to me is that it’s obviously meant as some way to show how the Japanese police are tackling the problem of illegal immigrants. I’m not really sure what they are going for by showing this story. These officers seem about as useful as the team they had rescuing a cat on a roof a couple days ago. I would much rather see them busting a factory or one of the brokers. Going after the people they did in this clip has almost no measurable impact on illegal immigrants.
Granted my access to Japanese news is pretty limited but it would be much more interesting to see a story on why the immigrants are here and what they are doing for Japan. Are they a serious problem or are they in fact helpful.
I’m not trying to say it is not important to punish people who break the law. Just strange that this is news worthy at all.
The title on the top-left corner says:
A beautiful female police detective for international investigation
Uncovering the secrets of foreigners with Pekingese
It rather shows a ridiculous aspect of Japanese TV.
Mandarin, please, not Pekingese. A Pekingese is a little fluffy dog.
Ah, it’s my mistake. Thank you for correction, The Overthinker.
I don’t know where this clip was taken from. But I think an incredibly ineffective use of man power is not a matter in this TV show. A beautiful woman, who is fluent in Mandarin, is spotlighted here, so it would be better if she led an army of hundreds of machos with a little fluffy dog, a Pekingese, to arrest a man who can speak Mandarin.
Maybe, late night news shows and NHK treat this issue more seriously? I’m sleepy now…
overthinker is wrong. Pekingnese is mandarin dialect from Beijing.
No wrongness, at least, in respect of disambiguity and common usage, unless the TV producer indeed meant Chinese dialect of Beijing. There seems to be no word for denoting “Standard Chinese” or “Standard Mandarin” in Japanese, so it is possible that TV persons have simply used the word “北京語” (Pekin-Go) for that. If we use Pekingnese as “Uncovering the secrets of foreigners with Pekingese“, then it may attract many “Weird Japan” freaks who want to know the secrets of foreigners uncovered by a Japanese woman with (well-trained) Pekingese dogs. While even those “Weird Japan” freaks will not expect that Mandarin oranges are usefull in uncovering the secrets of foreigners.
Japan will have to take in immigrants like it or not, you already see in Tokyo that lots of Chinese are working in combinis and places like Matsuya. I think Japan is right to have regulations and not just open up the border to anyone. I would like to see Japan taking a softer approach towards illegal immigrants who have children. Growing up in Europe I was constantly taught that multi culturalism is a good thing, while it might have its flaws I would be happy to see a more multi cultural Japan.
dude…
1: legal immigrants is not a same like illegal immigrants. dont drop them into the same pot.
2: Japan have immigration regulations.
3: If Japan will show mercy to illigal immigrants with children then illigal imigrinats will start to use children like a ticket to the japanese id.
4: i dont know in wich Europe you growed up but there is no “multi-culturalism” in this world. there are always only one culture with different forign influences or without them.
aside that todays EU is about multi-nationality but with integration of immigrans into own nation absolutly without to let them to live in their own world excluded from the local minority or even to let them expand own nationality inside of own nations..
(god hell i hate hacking and stalking idiots pretending they know the world becuz they can hack everywhere)
You sound like one of those people in US who wear these long robes with pointed hats setting fires on people´s lawns. I´ve always thought they were very bright and modern. Progressive people they are.
Dickus says. ” I ain’t no racist and I sure done learned all about socialism after watchin’ them electric pictures on the Fox News.”
im sure you are the racist here.
“aside that todays EU is about multi-nationality but with integration of immigrans into own nation absolutly without to let them to live in their own world excluded from the local minority or even to let them expand own nationality inside of own nations..”
Can you rewrite that in English please? I have no idea what you mean. I am sure that English is not your native language, but it makes it very hard to follow what I am sure, given your screen name, is an eloquent and erudite argument.
is English your native language?
Multicultural societies do exist BUT not if you choose to ignore them.The only places I’ve seen evidence of this is New Zealand, parts of America, parts of Canada, Australia
Definitely New Zealand.
I don’t really see any evidence of it in Europe though. Take France for instance. There are a lot of immigrants there but the majority prefer them to be “French”. Other cultures aren’t really celebrated there, more like tolerated. At least that was my impression. There is a lot of racism in Europe.
tell me one thing how can i ignore something what doesnt exist?
–The only places I’ve seen evidence of this is New Zealand, parts of America, parts of Canada, Australia
The only places I’ve seen evidence of this is New Zealand, parts of America, parts of Canada, Australia–
all countries with own culture wich were/are influenced by forign cultures.
–Take France for instance.There are a lot of immigrants there but the majority prefer them to be “French”.–
but they are french! immigrants wich are integrated into french nation are not immigrants anymore they are citizens of France.
–Other cultures aren’t really celebrated there, more like tolerated.–
you mean french don want to live like in Britain, Algir or Italy? aside you should understand tolerance of forign cultures is not the racism.
whyt you all here misundrstood is that multicultarism means all cultures are are not compatible and not interacting with each others. what brings the exlusive existence of culturaly life inside of the pouplation groups(ethnics, getthos, gangs) that is not the truth. the reality is that multiculturalism means you let the people to found own ethnical, cultural, economical and educational basement wich is not a basement of your own country.
such policy is very explosive and dangerous because it ignores the interaction and split cultural life into groups based on the racism and ethnicaly background of the whole population.
yo Longus… if you are going to crack on somebody for bad English, clean up your own… you are the one who sounds non-native
whateva yo say master 50 centsa!
feel sorry for some of them who want to earn money and support their family, relatives back at home. US doesn’t raid illegal immigrants, but ofcourse they deport ppl who has actual criminal records in the states.
yeahhh. they wasted so much money and time for smuglers and illigal existence instead to try it by legal immigration.
What? The US authorities regularly raid places that are suspected to employ illegals, just happened recently in some meat packing place I believe (have to look it up).
I do think she should be deported along with her parents. She belongs with her family.
Besides here in california, illegals are out of control. Probably the same in parts of japan but i doubt its anything like california. I saw probably 8 illegals for every one real american working stiff.
No wonder I can’t get any job for almost a year and now work almost as cheap as an illegal. Sure, flood your country with cheap labor and you or members of your family will find yourself jobless for sure.
Isn’t your gov’t suppose to protect its legal citizens both foreign born and natural. Get tough, start with big fines for those who hire illegals and take their licences to do business.
just feed up.