in article 40ED4369.60407@hotmail.com, Declan Murphy at
declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote on 7/8/04 9:51 PM:

> Ernest Schaal wrote:
> 
>> On what legal basis do you base your conclusion to refuse entry to the legal
>> child/spouse/dependant of a citizen? The Japanese Constitution? Japanese
>> law? International Law?
> 
> Japan's Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (amended). In
> reality of course it isn't the Act that matters, but how the Minister
> (the bureaucrats in reality) interpret it. Note that what I wrote was
> "What I disagree with is the notion that the state has to right to
> refuse entry to the legal child/spouse/dependant of a citizen" - ie not
> a legal basis but a personal opinion. Curious as to the legal shite I
> raised this discussion last night when I was having drinks with our
> immigration lawyer and an (off duty) immigration bureau official. I
> asked him what he'd heard about this - his comment was that though the
> case doesn't look good for PR, it was probably an oversight or due to a
> missing document that the extension wasn't immediately offered. His
> comment was that unless the sponsored spouse/child/dependant is a felon,
> there would usually never be a problem. I wrote earlier in the thread
> that I suspect that there was probably some information missing from the
> article - it is probably related to the adoption papers or death
> certificates.

Thank you for your story about the bar, it is interesting.
> 
>> I assure you if the non-citizen pre-teen or teenage dependent of citizen in
>> the US committed a felony in the US, the INS would seek to deport said
>> dependent. Thus, according to US law does NOT support your conclusion that
>> the state can't refuse entry to the legal child/spouse/dependant of a
>> citizen. What makes you think that Japanese law is that different?
> 
> I've noticed that so far all of your examples have been American, but on
> immigration Sepponia has long been a somewhat silly country. Last night
> I also asked what would happen if a non-citizen spouse/dependant of a
> Japanese citizen was convicted of a serious felony in Japan - their
> answer was that it would not likely result in deportation, but in local
> detention. So I asked what would happen if a non-citizen
> spouse/dependant of a permanent foreign resident was convicted of a
> serious felony in Japan - same. Lock 'em up.

I agree with your that my examples have been US, primarily because that is
law I know the most and because it is one of the more open immigration
systems. You call the US a silly country, but it has traditionally had a
much more open system for accepting immigrants, granting permanent resident
visas, and granting citizenship than most other countries.

Look at Europe for example. The amount of immigration to Europe has
increased dramatically recently, but no where near the levels to the US.
Part of the reason is that European countries have been relatively strict on
immigration, with most (not all) of immigrants coming from former colonies.
The European Union has changed things in so far as it increased the pool of
immigrants allowed to come to a particular country.

An illustration of all this is found in two news stories. The first news
story is an old but continuing one, of illegal immigrants trying to smuggle
through the tunnel connecting England and France, but they were stopped at
the tunnel and were put in detention camps in France. The last I heard, was
that earlier this year, England was able to reduce the problem and was able
to convince the French to move the detention facilities elsewhere. The
second story is in Ireland, which recently modified its law so that not all
people born in Ireland are citizens. Apparently, from the BBC stories, it
was the only EU country having such automatic citizenship for birth there,
and was being "misused" by tourists who come there specifically to give
birth there so that the children will be citizens of a EU country.