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| What would you do in my situation? |
| Stay and forget about a visa. |
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10% |
[ 1 ] |
| Leave every 90 days. |
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20% |
[ 2 ] |
| Go elsewhere. |
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70% |
[ 7 ] |
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| Total Votes : 10 |
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Message |
c99ux
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Posts: 8
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 Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:06 am Post subject: Working in Japan without a valid visa |
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| I have been working here on a spousal visa for 2 years. I recently applied for a change but it was refused. I want to stay here, but that would be illegal... I know that I can leave and come back, and every time I come back I get another 90 days (possible extension for a further 98 days), but it's only a tourist visa and I shouldn't work. Has anyone worked here without a visa? How long? Been deported for doing so? Any problems at re-entry? Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks. |
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Celeste
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Posts: 814
Location: Fukuoka City, Japan
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:15 am Post subject: |
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| Are you still married? Why did you apply for a change? Are you truly on a spousal visa (married to a Japanese national) or are you on a dependants visa (married to a visa holder who is working here)? Will you have to be apart from your spouse if you leave? I'm sorry, I can't quite understand why you want to change from a spousal visa to a regular humanities work visa. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:22 am Post subject: |
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Sadly, many people work here without the proper visa. They risk imprisonment, monetary fines, deportation, and being blacklisted from returning to Japan for 5-10 years. Don't do it.
As celeste wrote, please explain your situation a little more. Changing from a spouse visa is a major step down, so all I can figure is that you got divorced and were forced to request a change of visa status. |
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king kakipi
Joined: 16 Feb 2004
Posts: 353
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I have been working here on a spousal visa for 2 years. I recently applied for a change |
Why?!
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| but it was refused |
Why?!
And I can't see the relevance of a poll to be honest. Which option would YOU choose........................? |
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David W
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Posts: 457
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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| king kakipi wrote: |
And I can't see the relevance of a poll to be honest. Which option would YOU choose........................? |
I like it KK, everyones a winner.   |
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c99ux
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:45 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for your responses. Celeste, yes, it was a spousal visa, I was married to a Japanese citizen. Glenski, you're right on the button. I got divorced in March this year, and applied for a "Change of Status".
The reasons the new application was refused:
No Bachelor's degree;
I couldn't provide them with proof of at least 3 years FULL TIME employment as a teacher/specialist in language services.
As my (spousal) visa expired in April, I've been told that I've overstayed, but they gave me a 7-month permit to stay, which covers me up to November 2nd.
I'd like to get answers (from people with experience, if possible) to the original questions:
Has anyone worked here without a visa? How long? Been deported for doing so? Any problems at re-entry? |
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king kakipi
Joined: 16 Feb 2004
Posts: 353
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:58 am Post subject: |
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So with the above info now provided, I would add a vote to 'go elsewhere'. Working in Japan illegally (risking a few days or more in prison and a 10 year ban) must be one of the most stupid risks to take. I would choose 'marrying a complete stranger with a Japanese passport (preferably female )' as a better option!!
Dave W; another barbed comment, thanks. I am seriously considering travelling a very long distance to teach privates for 300 Yen an hour at the coffee shop across from your school My point WAS, voting is useful for some very important issues (like deciding the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest  ). However, if I click on one of the top two options 1000 times is the OP then going to choose that option? Should I then visit him in prison (Chofu or wherever) and say 'sorry, mate' I got it wrong'? (Anyway, I haven't got time to go to prison due to an excessive number of private students  ) Anyone who clicks one fo the top two options is winding the OP up, I reckon |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:46 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Has anyone worked here without a visa? How long? Been deported for doing so? |
Japan gets tough on visa violators
1-day overstay can bring time in cell, 5-year banishment
Catherine Makino, Chronicle Foreign Service
Monday, May 10, 2004
Tokyo -- When Bay Area students Angela Luna and Richard Nishizawa tried to board a plane bound for San Francisco in March, airport authorities threw them in a small holding cell and held them incommunicado for several days before banishing them from Japan for five years.
Luna and Nishizawa, who had studied Japanese for a year at Reitaku University about 20 miles northeast of Tokyo, were not arrested for committing a serious crime. They had merely stayed in the country two weeks longer than their visas permitted.
"We had valid 5-year visas, so we didn't bother to look at our immigration stamps," Luna, 27, said by telephone from her home in Lafayette. "The guards made me change my clothes because they had drawstrings. They thought I might use it has a weapon, or strangle someone. We were treated like criminals."
Nishizawa, 31, who lives in Martinez, says he was handcuffed, strip- searched, placed in a 20-by-20-foot cell with four other foreigners and given a mat to sleep on.
Christopher Mockford, a student from Ellensburg, Wash., was handcuffed and detained for three days after finishing a yearlong scholarship program at Shimane University in western Japan. He, too, was banished from Japan for five years, for staying one day longer than his visa allowed.
"My major is Japanese, and now I will have to probably change it," Mockford said.
Luna, Nishizawa and Mockford were victims of an intense crackdown in the past year that punishes foreigners who stay in Japan longer than they are legally allowed. The campaign has been harshly criticized by human rights groups, who say politicians and the government are cynically blaming foreigners for Japan's depressed economy and rising crime rate -- even if innocent tourists and students get caught up in the dragnet.
"There is racial profiling going on, and no one is questioning it," said Makoto Teranaka, secretary general of Amnesty International in Japan. "The police are using foreigners as scapegoats for an increase in crime."
Known locally as "overstayers," foreigners are subject to being jailed for three to four days, fined up to $3,000 and banned from Japan for five years for staying a single day longer than their visa permits. Some are even charged $600 for each day in detention and denied the right to call their family or embassy unless they appeal their cases, a three- to five-week process that few overstayers opt for.
The Justice Ministry argues that the crackdown is warranted because some 220,000 foreigners violated their visas last year -- mostly Koreans, Filipinos and Chinese who want to hang on to jobs that pay higher wages than jobs in their own countries. An additional 30,000 foreigners were smuggled illegally into Japan, mainly from China.
Tatsuro Kitazono, an immigration officer in Tokyo, says the crackdown is linked to a 17 percent jump in crime by foreigners in the past year. In 2003, police say foreigners committed 40,615 criminal acts -- mostly theft, fraud and forgery, but also the high-profile murders of a family of four in Fukuoka by three Chinese students.
Earl Kinmoth, a professor of sociology at Tokyo's Taisho University who has lived in Japan for some 30 years, also sees a historical tie to the campaign against overstayers.
"The crackdown is probably a combination of things: an increase in crime by Chinese, 9/11, unthinking officials and fear of foreigners," he said. "And certainly there is xenophobia here, based on history."
Japan was closed to the world for 250 years until U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry forced the shogunate to open Japan's borders in 1854. The nation remains homogeneous, with only 0.2 percent of its population foreign-born. Sociologists say many Japanese remain deeply distrustful of gaijin, as foreigners are known -- a sentiment that has increased in recent years because of a decade-long economic recession and rising unemployment.
Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, a nationalist who is one of Japan's most popular politicians, has promised additional manpower to help immigration agents root out visa violators in Tokyo and surrounding areas. In 2000, Ishihara told members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces that foreigners had committed "atrocious crimes" in the past and "could be expected to riot in the event of a disastrous earthquake."
The Immigration Bureau has also jumped on the nationalist bandwagon by creating a Web site (www.immi-moj.go.jp/zyouhou/index.html) in February that Amnesty International has described as "cyber xenophobia." The site asks Japanese to turn in suspicious foreigners who are "taking your jobs" and received more than 780 tips in the first month, according to bureau spokesman Mamoru Fukudaki.
Michael Boyle, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, says he does not know how many Americans have been detained in recent months because most detainees choose to leave Japan after paying fines and accepting the five-year banishment.
"The anecdotal evidence suggests that there has been an uptick in the number of Americans detained," Boyle said. "Our opinion is that when traveling abroad, Americans are subject to the laws of the country they are visiting."
An aging population and a low birth rate -- Japan's population is expected to drop from 125 million in 2004 to 100 million by 2056, in a projection by the National Institute of Population and Social Security -- have caused the government to grudgingly open its doors to foreign workers, who often take jobs shunned by most Japanese as falling within the "3Ds" -- dirty, dangerous and difficult. Such jobs, including work at construction sites and in restaurant kitchens, typically offer low wages and few or no benefits.
Tony Lazlo, director of Issho Kikaku ("Together Project"), a nonprofit organization formed by Tokyo-based foreigners to support multicultural issues, says foreigners previously avoided punishment for expired visas by writing a letter of apology. Kinmoth says immigration officials used to "bend over backward to handle it."
A special commission has been set up to review the nation's immigration laws.
Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat and the only foreigner on the panel, says his colleagues are "impervious to bad publicity" and are unlikely to ease up on overstayers. The Justice Ministry, which launched a special 200- member unit to find illegal residents last month, may increase the maximum fine from $3,000 to $30,000 and increase the banishment from five to 10 years.
In the Bay Area, Luna and Nishizawa say they plan on returning to Japan after their five-year banishment ends. But both are still fuming about being caught up in Japanese politics. "I am upset about the way it was handled, especially since a lot of it is political and not a glitch in the bureaucratic system," said Luna. "The punishment certainly didn't fit the crime." |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:51 am Post subject: |
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c99ux,
Your profile does not say what country you are from. If it is possible for you to get a working holiday visa, that would probably be your only real viable option to staying here, but it is only for certain nationalities (not Americans), for people within a certain age limit, and only for about a year. It does not require a degree, but you must apply for it from your home country. Perhaps after you get this (if you are eligible) and accrue some more teaching experience, you can prove that 3 years and get it changed to a work visa.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/w_holiday/index.html
Otherwise, you are pretty much stuck unless you want to be a student here and get a student visa in order to work PT. |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:12 am Post subject: |
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| c99ux wrote: |
No Bachelor's degree;
I couldn't provide them with proof of at least 3 years FULL TIME employment as a teacher/specialist in language services.
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You're luck you got a 7 month permit to stay. Since you don't qualify for a spouse visa anymore, you don't meet the minimum requirements for a work visa. Who cares that you have 3 years of full-time employment as a teacher...that doesn't get you a visa.
I suggest that you leave the country and not work illegally. |
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Celeste
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Posts: 814
Location: Fukuoka City, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| Have you considered becoming a student? You could stay here and go to university. After receiving a degree in Japan, I'm not sure whether or not you would qualify for a work visa, though. I suppose, like the others, I would recommend you call it a day and try another country. Staying illegally is just not worth the risk involved. As you've already been caught overstaying once and the immigration folks were gracious enough to grant you an extension, I wouldn't push it. Your previous overstay might be a red flag next to your name. |
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c99ux
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:39 am Post subject: |
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Thanks EVERYONE for all the information and ideas. I'm British, 42, so a working holiday visa is out, and also probably a student visa.
Celeste, thanks for the advice. I haven't officially overstayed, because I was waiting for my application to be approved. If a visa expires while you're waiting for a new one, it isn't overstay.
Glenski, thanks for the article. It was about overtsay, more than working without a visa. I have now decided not to stay without a visa, because it's not worth it if I want to come back here (which I reallly do...). I'd like to know about risk of teaching on a 90 day temporary permit. I know that if I come here as a tourist I'll get a 90 day stamp at the airport oupon entry, and if I apply for change of status, I can work while they are processing my application. But I also know that it will get refused again for the same reason that the fist application was refused. It might also piss them (immigration people) off a bit.
So, the chances of me getting a working visa are very low... I know that if I get married again (to a Japanese woman), I can get another spousal visa, but until then... I don't mind taking a week's holiday every 3 months. Has anyone else done that? |
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homersimpson
Joined: 14 Feb 2003
Posts: 569
Location: Kagoshima
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| Dude, you're playing with fire here. It is not advisable to try to work on tourist visas and come and go every 90 days. Any employer hiring you under those conditions is not reputable and may even screw you out of salary, knowing you have no legal recourse. |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:46 am Post subject: |
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| c99ux wrote: |
| I'd like to know about risk of teaching on a 90 day temporary permit. I know that if I come here as a tourist I'll get a 90 day stamp at the airport oupon entry, and if I apply for change of status, I can work while they are processing my application. |
You can't work legally while waiting for you application to go through if you don't have a valid visa to work. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:28 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I'd like to know about risk of teaching on a 90 day temporary permit. |
Same as overstaying. You risk detention for 21 days without a lawyer, imprisonment, monetary fine, deportation, and being blacklisted for 5-10 years.
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| I know that if I come here as a tourist I'll get a 90 day stamp at the airport oupon entry, and if I apply for change of status, I can work while they are processing my application. |
Technically, no, you can't. It's illegal. However, in reality, some employers allow their teachers to do this. Just realize that the legit ones will treat you fairly and get this done properly. Some places are not legit and will string you along with promises or "delays" until you have overstayed, then they hold back on your last paycheck and kick you out.
But, how did you expect to get hired anyway with no bachelor's degree and no hope of a working holiday visa???
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| I know that if I get married again (to a Japanese woman), I can get another spousal visa, but until then... I don't mind taking a week's holiday every 3 months. Has anyone else done that? |
You're treading on thin ice. Yes, people skip in and out of the country to work illegally as you described, but it is STILL ILLEGAL and if you are caught (especially if you come in at the same port of entry often), be prepared to face the penalties I wrote above. This is a dangerous time to try to be fooling Japanese customs and immigration.[/quote] |
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