SNA (Tokyo) — Tozen Union joined other labor unions and rights groups in a sit-in Wednesday outside Japan’s Diet Building, as the House of Councillors deliberated a bill to get tough on refugees, migrants, and other foreigners.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided against forcing a vote on Wednesday and instead aims to pass the bill on Friday, May 14. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other minority parties hope to block it.

The proposed amendment to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act would enable the Immigration Bureau to deport tenacious asylum seekers (who can apply three times); make refusing a leave-the-country order and absconding from provisional release into crimes; and set up a surveillance system for foreigners granted provisional release from detention.

The bill would also enable the authorities to offer deals to detainee supporters and groups–release from detention on condition that the supporters become personally liable (with potential civil and criminal penalties) for any legal infraction or crime committed on the part of the released detainee. Supporters would in effect become their parole officers in charge of supervising released detainees. If the detainee takes flight or commits other crimes, the supporter could be charged with criminal abetting.

This creates a clear conflict of interest, in effect it is an attempt to turn supporters against detainees and makes them vulnerable to prosecution for acts committed by those they want to help.

This represents a harsh crackdown in a country with an already abysmal record on granting refugee status (a pitiful 0.4% of applicants) and where a Sri Lankan asylum seeker died March 6 in a Nagoya detention center after cruelly neglecting her serious symptoms of illness.

Immigration law in Japan is not like an ordinary law that balances rights and obligations. Authorities have rights; foreigners have obligations and can be imprisoned (“detained”) without due process or serious appeal. Foreigners have rights on paper and even in the Constitution of Japan. But the reality is that immigration bureaucrats hold  the power of life and death over their prisoners (“detainees”).

The negligent death of Wishma Sandamali, 33, has led to the arrest of not a single immigration official, not even the bureau’s director, Shoko Sasaki. If such a death had happened in a retirement home, prosecutors would launch a criminal investigation targeting those running the facility. The impunity with which immigration officials can brutalize and ultimately kill an asylum seeker underlines that the life of a foreigner is valued below that of a citizen.

In the wake of her death, the government should scrap the bill and reform the system in a genuine manner to value human life and dignity, moving from controlling to supporting those who come to Japan seeking refuge or work.

Regrettable, the conservative government is moving in the opposite direction, giving new powers to immigration officials to crack down more harshly on foreigners, including asylum seekers.

Foreigners and Japanese must come together to end the polarization of our society into two parts. It’s time we value foreign life equally with Japanese life; the human rights of all must be protected equally. It’s not acceptable to ignore cries for help from a young woman because she may have broken some rules. It’s not permissible to show callous regard for her life because she happens to have a different passport or grew up on a different small island.

This is an opinion piece contributed by Louis Carlet, founder and senior organizer of Tozen Union, which is organizing the protests.

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