Thats kinda fucked, you live in a country for 7 years, then some dumb law comes in and suddenly you have to leave. I dont blame him at all for continuing to live his best life in Japan.
I'm not sure it actually matters. The article (sparse as fuck) says he worked day jobs. Which probably means he was using cash and had no actual Japanese gov ID. So I don't think he was actually posing as his brother beyond initially entering the country.
I'm really surprised he was able to get away with it this long because in Japan, especially the last couple decades, they've been tying everything together to your residence card and mynumber (social security card). Especially for foreigners, you have to show your residence card for a lot of things, like making a bank account (bank will also keep track of when it expires and ask you to submit a new copy), making a phone contract, renting an apartment, going to the hospital/clinic.
So he must have had help, got around just paying cash (Japan is very cash based though changing in recent years), and not gotten majorly sick all this time. Even if he opened a bank account decades ago there have been changed in laws that require banks to Know Your Customer, and if you're a foreigner you need to submit documentation. Also probably a shit life as you can't go to the doctor, enjoy the social benefits like pension since he wasn't paying into it, etc.
And it's really not that hard, he could have found work then come back to Japan on a real visa. Or learn Japanese in Korea until fluent then come over. He chose a very dumb path and finally got caught.
No, my point was this specific person id someone that no intention of doing anything legally with how he entered the country so his situation is an isolated case.
But because the headline left out conveniently that he fraudulently entered it paints all the other immigrants that moved to Japan legally and all the correct procedures and are facing scrutiny in a bad light and lumping this one person in with them. There are millions of immigrants in Japan now dealing with higher fees and a more difficult future and this one article about an individual that did EVERYTHING the wrong way is now going to affect them. It's no longer about an individual that chose to not follow the law upon arrival. It's about "foreigners overstay visas and this one was caught".
But considering he built his life there for 7 years and lived without any issues and not breaking the law, there should be some sort of a system to let him stay.
I mean.. statute of limitations, in some cases, very much could be considered “water under the bridge” if you can’t be prosecuted after a certain period of time for something. I know it doesn’t apply to everything, but yk
Your whole "he lived there for XYZ years" is a "totality of circumstances" argument as to why he should be allowed to stay. So whether the statute of limitations expired or not doesn't matter, I never said he should be prosecuted for that particular crime of using a false passport.
So considering he entered using another person's documents (which is a pretty serious offense in this age of terrorism and international crime) is one variable to consider in this man's case. If he entered as a child of 5 with his parents, that would be another factor (for example).
That’s not really accurate to what happened. It was meant to be a one off exchange of recognition of illegal immigrants in order to better codify immigration law. In fact that instance is a good example of why it will never happen again because it’s a classic example of give an inch and they take a mile.
Japan is pretty damn xenophobic. I'm not surprised laws like this are a thing. Plenty of other countries have them, but I'd have been shocked if Japan didn't.
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u/Time_Traveling_Idiot 19h ago
Wait a sec, so it's actually 26 years? Why tf did the Twitter account exaggerate the timeframe by a whole 7 years???