Negotiations with the Ministry of Justice

On Wednesday, December 15, 2010, APFS held negotiations with the Ministry of Justice. Three members of APFS, including Representative Director Kato, and three members of the Ministry of Justice, including Ishioka Kuniaki, Chief of the Trial Division, attended. The negotiations were made possible with the cooperation of the office of House of Representatives member Hattori Ryoichi.

APFS has revised the "Guidelines for Special Permission to Stay" in July 2009.
In order to ensure proper and flexible implementation, we made the following three requests.

(1) Please allow irregular families with children of elementary school age or older to stay in Japan
(2) Please allow the entire family to stay (please do not separate parents and children)
(3) Special residence permission should be granted to families of irregular immigrants

Regarding (2) above,
"The Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice will not pressure foreigners to separate their parents from their children.
Ultimately, the decision on whether or not to allow it is made by the whole family."
However, there are cases where parents and children are forced to be separated.
Based on these negotiations, APFS will continue to seek the right to stay for the entire family.

In addition, there are problems with the way Tokyo Immigration Bureau officials treat foreigners.
APFS stated that it would obtain a response from the Ministry of Justice regarding the issues.

APFS will continue to hold regular negotiation forums in the future.
We will continue to call for proper and flexible implementation of special residence permits.