During the time I was working with displaced persons in Japan we would come up against a number of unforeseen legal obstacles and long trials. Our success, such as it was, in drawing the attention of the National Diet and the mass media seemed inadequate. Supporters would get tired of confronting immigration violations “case by case” and would drop out. Why did I continue with this work despite my tiredness and frustration? Despondent, I prayed often to God, and miracles happened. One such miracle was obtaining refugee status for five Vietnamese brothers.
One day the eldest one, who was 25, called me in despair. One of his brothers had obtained leave from his job and gone to the USA to visit his sick mother, planning to stay there about two weeks before returning to Japan. His three-year visa in Japan was valid for another five months. But on arrival in the United States he had a car accident, suffered multiple fractures in the right leg and had to have three operations. As he lay bedridden in hospital his mother died. He needed to renew his Japanese visa but the Japanese consulate in San Francisco refused to accept his application. When the brothers appealed to me, I had a half-hour overseas phone conversation with the consul, but he said that it could be done only in Japan. Meeting a senior official in the Ministry of Justice yielded no result. The person had to be physically present, I was told.
By the time the young man was able to use a wheelchair, he had lost his Japanese legal status. All the requirements to obtain Japanese nationality, which he had already met, stood cancelled and he had to start from zero. He returned in a wheelchair on a tourist visa. As soon as he arrived in Japan I arranged a meeting with the same immigration official I had contacted earlier. It was a significant meeting–a former accepted refugee, now in a wheelchair, rejected by Japan only because he had had an accident abroad. In that chilly atmosphere legalities were above the human person.
Changing structures remains an important element in the social apostolate. Is it really possible? I have become skeptical. But our limited actions and the warmth and respect we show to people can restore their dignity and hope.
Ando Isamu SJ (selasj@kiwi.ne.jp)
Jesuit Social Center, Tokyo: http://www.kiwi-us.com/~selasj/jsc/english/english.htm
(Source: SJS Headlines 2009/06)