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apfseditor 
On April 29, 2015 (a national holiday), we held the "We want to live in Japan with our whole family!" parade in Ginza. This was part of an emergency response to the Ministry of Justice's Immigration Bureau suggesting that undocumented foreign families be separated from their parents and children.
A total of about 70 people, including those affected and their supporters, participated in the parade, walking through Ginza appealing, "Don't tear our families apart!" Children also shouted out, "We want to continue living in Japan as a family!" It seemed to me that many people lining the streets during the parade listened to the appeals of the affected people. Many people also took pamphlets calling for support.
The parade ended without a hitch, but the activities of the people involved and us supporters will continue until the day the families of those involved can obtain residence status. In the future, we will accelerate our activities by setting up support groups in the local area and holding symposiums to discuss the pros and cons of family separation, focusing on children.
We are currently raising funds for this emergency action through crowdfunding READYFOR?. There is less than a month left until the deadline. Please support our activities by purchasing a READYFOR? voucher!
For more information on READY FOR?, please see below.
We want to help undocumented foreign families live safely in Japan!
https://readyfor.jp/projects/livingtogether2
*The parade was also featured in The Japan Times.
You can view the article at the following URL:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/29/national/crime-legal/visa-overstayers-march-right-remain-japan/#.VULtfZMkqBU
The article was translated into Japanese using APFS.
You can see below.
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Japan Times article from April 30, 2015
Undocumented workers fight to stay in familiar Japan
Overstayers gather in Tokyo
Overstayers who have been issued deportation orders marched through Ginza on Wednesday afternoon, pleading for permission to remain in the Japan they have called home for decades.
The parade was organized by the non-profit organization ASIAN PEOPLE'S FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY and featured more than 70 overstayers, their families and supporters. The participants were from various countries, including the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran.
"We deeply regret having broken Japanese law. But for the sake of our children's future, we really want to be able to stay in Japan," said one of the participants, a 45-year-old Filipino woman and mother of two.
After losing a court case against the government, she and her husband were told by the Immigration Bureau that only their eldest son, now 18, could remain in Japan, while the couple and their younger son must return to the Philippines.
According to APFS representative Jotaro Kato, many of these overstayers came to Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s to fill the labor shortage during the bubble economy. Desperate to fill the labor market demand, the Japanese government accepted them and sent them to Japan.
But once their labor was no longer needed, the government began to treat them as criminals involved in shady businesses and criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, and began cracking down on them.
According to the Ministry of Justice, as of January 1st of this year, there were 60,007 people in the country who had overstayed their visa status, a decrease to about one-fifth of the peak figure recorded in 1993.
"Some people may think that since they are breaking the rules, the appropriate measure is to send them home, but it's not that simple. In many cases, the situation they find themselves in has been created by factors beyond their control, such as government labor policies," Kato said.
Kato concluded by saying that it is absurd for the government to change course at will and forcibly deport foreign workers, let alone separate them from their children.
Article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the United Nations and which Japan has ratified, stipulates that "States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will."