WARABI, Saitama -- A Filipino man and his wife face imminent deportation from Japan, and the painful possibility of leaving their 13-year-old daughter behind.
Arlan Calderon, 36, an interior demolition worker living in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, arrived in Japan illegally in 1993, and has been ordered by the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau to turn himself in to authorities for deportation by Friday. In response, his coworkers have rallied around him and more than 19,000 signatures have been collected on a petition calling on the Ministry of Justice to give him special permission to stay in Japan.
What's more, Arlan's Japanese-born daughter Noriko, a junior high school first grader, must either go with her family, or remain in Japan without her parents.
"Japan is my beloved country. And I want to live together with my whole family," pleads Noriko.
Arlan's long illegal stay in Japan began with an altered passport. On the night before he was to leave for Japan, Arlan went to get his passport from the broker he had hired to secure his visa to the country. The passport he accepted had a different person's last name and a birth date one year too early. He took the passport despite the changes. "I had already paid, so I just got on the plane," Arlan says.
Once he arrived, Arlan learned Japanese in about a year. He did dirty and dangerous jobs, such as asbestos removal, and worked almost entirely at night. Despite such conditions, he strived to succeed, believing that "to achieve recognition in Japan, I had to put in five times the effort."
In one incident, Arlan even rescued the job site supervisor from under several heavy sheets of metal. "Without you here, this company would be in trouble," his firm's president once told him.
Arlan's wife Sarah Calderon, 38, whom he married in Japan, was arrested in July 2006 for staying in Japan illegally. While Sarah was in custody, Arlan knew that he couldn't leave the then 11-year-old Noriko alone at home during the night. So, for the some 10 months Sarah was gone, Arlan took his daughter to work with him, where she slept in the car.
The family was ordered to leave Japan by the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau in November 2006, and Arlan's lawsuit to have the order cancelled was rejected. When Arlan visited the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau on Feb. 13, he was told that either his whole family had to go, or he could leave Noriko behind in Japan. The bureau also demanded that Arlan set a date for his departure. Unable to make such a choice, he will visit the immigration bureau once more on Friday.
What Arlan regrets most in all his trouble with the authorities is that events have led to his daughter suffering.
Hoping to encourage the Calderon family, five of Arlan's coworkers visited his home on Feb. 7.
"Arlan is the old hand at work. He takes good care of the rest of us, and he treats everyone equally. So we all think we should help him," says Koichiro Hosono, 29.
"Absolutely do not give up, because we're all with you," Arlan's workmates told him, trying to keep his spirits up.
According to the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, there were around 174,000 people staying in Japan illegally as of January 2008. In 2007, immigration authorities ordered the deportation of 45,502 illegal residents, though 7,388 received special permission to stay in Japan from the minister of justice. Of those special cases, 1,457 people had entered the country illegally.
Mainichi
February 26, 2009
