Japan Times on critics of new IC Chip Gaijin Card bill from the Right: too lenient!

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Hi Blog. The Japan Times is still at it, getting viewpoints regarding new legislation controlling NJ movements and visas and traceability (which looks like it will pass the Diet) from Dietmembers, bureaucrats, and left-wing opponents. Now we have the view of someone who thinks the laws, which will tighten things in directions Debito.org is not comfortable with, are too lenient! Excerpt follows. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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The Japan Times Wednesday, July 1, 2009
CONTROLS ON FOREIGNERS
Visa overstayers given too many breaks: rightist
By MINORU MATSUTANI, Staff writer
Fourth in a series

Full article at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090701a3.html

…Arikado also takes issue with the humanitarian reasons often cited by the justice minister when granting an illegal foreigner special permission to stay in Japan.

“Some foreigners claim to be political refugees. But in many cases, they just want to work,” he said. “Some Japanese died of hunger after they lost their jobs, so is it right to prioritize helping foreigners? Right now, everybody in Japan is losing their spirit as Japanese nationals.”…

Arikado cited the case of the Calderon family as an “obvious example” of the government’s softness.

Justice Minister Eisuke Mori ordered the undocumented Filipino parents, who entered Japan using someone else’s passports, to leave Japan in April. But he allowed their daughter, Noriko, 13, who was born and raised in Japan and speaks only Japanese, to stay.

“Mori established a precedent that children get to stay if illegal foreign parents beg,” he said, criticizing the media for overly sympathetic coverage of the family…

Arikado said he has no problem with giving the justice minister a certain amount of discretion in granting special permission to stay, but he wants the minister to prioritize the welfare of Japanese over foreigners.

Despite the faults he finds with the bills, he still praises them for boosting the government’s ability to wield greater scrutiny over foreigners. Hopefully, punishment for violating the regulations stipulated in the bills will be more strictly imposed than now, said Arikado, whose day job is as a journalist at the Chuo Tsushin news service.
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EXCERPT ENDS
Full article at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090701a3.html

7 comments on “Japan Times on critics of new IC Chip Gaijin Card bill from the Right: too lenient!

  • Cracking down on illegal immigration is a good thing. No problem. Sure, people just want to come here to work, and there is a part of Japan that wants them to come, but there should be a legitimate mechanism to allow this to happen legally. Of course people overstay or enter illegally. Is there any other way?
    Perhaps Japan should also allow dual citizenship and an easier path for legitimate immigration. Complete with a social support system like language training and how to take out the trash. Helping immigrants to assimilate. Maybe some protections to prevent the abuse of foreign labor. A coherent, well thought out, reality based policy for the future. Maybe a 30 year plan administered by a new Ministry of Immigration.

    Reply
  • jjobseeker says:

    “…Right now, everybody in Japan is losing their spirit as Japanese nationals.”
    I bet you’d like to find a way to blame us for this, eh Arikado? Sadly, it’s YOU in the positions of power that are sucking the spirit out of the Japanese people with your flaccid domestic policies and money-grabbing schemes! That’s right, focus your attention on giving Japanese nationals jobs, and throwing out the foreigners, ’cause when the population drops by 33% in the next 30 years, you’re going to wonder why your economy is still in the sh*tter; but I’m betting you’ll blame foreigners as being “anti-Japanese” by not coming to Japan to work or buying Japanese goods. We’ll have our revenge Arikado, when no one answers the nursing call button after you’ve become too old and you’re soiling yourself.

    Reply
  • D.B.Cooper. says:

    The attempts by states to control the movement of people leads only to criminalisation, apartheid and death. People are divided into those with and without documents, workers divided into those with and without rights, and countries divided into a strict hierarchy of wealth. Thousands die as they try to cross borders, as the conditions of detention become unbearable or as the threat of return to unbearable conditions get closer. Selective inclusion and ‘illegality’ are methods to divide and control us all. No One Is Illegal!

    http://noborders.org.uk/

    Reply
  • I don’t quite understand why the Japan Times would write an entire column about the opinions of some far-right lunatic from a tiny foreigner-hating fringe group. You’d think they could have found someone in the LDP to offer a similarly ignorant view, but with more credibility.

    This Arikado guy, in addition to being completely wrong, is completely insignificant.

    Reply
  • I wrote about it before, but again comparing Japan to Italy. Below are the newest news how EU want to deal with Italains who I think do good job. Unlike Japan they target illegals and want them to pay, whiles in japan we, legal residents will pay the price and be controlled.

    http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4451726,00.html

    Reply
  • tim zandbergen says:

    The views of former ultra-right member Daisuke Arikado are disturbing to say the least and as Daniel said:
    “You’d think they could have found someone in the LDP to offer a similarly ignorant view, but with more credibility.”
    What he said is sardonic, cynical, and self-serving. To start with, instead of a high-handed name such as Movement to Eradicate Crimes by Foreigners how about Movement to Eradicate Crime or Movement to Eradicate Crime Syndicates? Where are his sources on the number of crimes committed by undocumented persons and what is their statistical proportion to crimes committed by documented persons or Japanese nationals?
    He appears to be on the cheap intentionally targeting a powerless population that is already open to exploitation with little protection. Most of illegal residents are involved in menial labor or the sex industry and have very little chance of more advancement. They are from my own experience after living in Japan for almost 20 years for the most part caring human beings who have the same needs and longings as the local population, have found themselves here for whatever circumstances, and happen to be at low end of the totem pole.
    The Justice Ministry’s plan to consolidate all foreign residents’ information is just the latest step in big brother control, illegal when applied to Japanese Nationals, and is very unlikely to achieve its stated intention of having overstayers turn themselves. Furthermore, based on government precedents they will not likely issue massive amounts of special permits to those who do. Legal Residents will be more inconvenienced by such measures but illegal ones surely will head underground and face even more exploitation, hardship, and lose the local services they now have at the local level.
    If this is one step in reviving the kind of National Spirit that Mr. Arikado and his rather sorry type have in mind, then it is the kind of semi-fascist ideology whereby the nation can only survive and remain strong by asserting itself against the weak, and this starts by demonizing and dehumanizing selectively targeted groups beginning with alleged crimes.

    Reply
  • Wow, the Calderons entered the country on false pretenses? I thought they were just overstayers. They should have been thrown in JAIL before being deported!

    “You’d think they could have found someone in the LDP to offer a similarly ignorant view, but with more credibility.”

    Or maybe they couldn’t find said ignorant view in the LDP so they had to find some fringe actor to play to their readership.

    Reply

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