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apfseditor 
Starting with the "100 Days Action" that began on February 1, 2009, APFS has submitted petitions for reconsideration to the Minister of Justice for 22 irregularly residing families, requesting that they be allowed to stay in Japan, despite the fact that deportation orders had already been issued to them. These families had serious circumstances that prevented them from returning to their home countries, such as their lives being based in Japan and their children being born in Japan and attending elementary and junior high school there.
Between July and September 2009, there were a series of cases in which the fathers of families who were in the midst of a lawsuit seeking the cancellation of a deportation order or who had applied for refugee status were not granted the extension of provisional release and were re-detained.
In order to prevent the situation from becoming more serious, we submitted a petition to the Ministry of Justice and the Tokyo Immigration Bureau on December 22, 2009. The petition was divided into two main points.
1) We would like special permission to stay to be granted to "parents who are caring for and raising elementary and junior high school children aged 10 or older," which is given as an example of a positive element in the "Guidelines Pertaining to Special Residence Permission" (revised by the Immigration Bureau in July 2009).
2) I ask that my father, who was detained from July to September, be granted provisional release as soon as possible and returned to his family.
At the appeal in front of the Immigration Bureau, many children had tears in their eyes as they sent messages to their fathers who are being held in the facility. They are calling for immediate provisional release.
On December 24, 2009, we received some good news. Of the 22 families, one from China was granted special permission to stay. After that, families from Iran and the Philippines were granted permission to stay in Japan one after another, and as of February 28, five families had obtained special permission to stay in Japan (however, one of the 22 families has already been repatriated at government expense).
The remaining 16 families do not have much time left. Now is the critical moment to see whether they will be granted permission to stay in Japan or not. We will once again unite to seek permission to stay in Japan. We ask for your continued cooperation and support.