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kidkensei
Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 36
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 Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:04 am Post subject: Re-entry permits |
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Ok, so Ive downloaded my permit from the net but it seems unreasonable that I have to go in person to the regional immigration office all the way in Nagano. I didnt find any mailing instructions on the government website either.
Has anyone done this before?
Kensei |
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BobbyBan
Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 201
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Shonai Ben
Joined: 15 Feb 2003
Posts: 617
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:30 am Post subject: Re: Re-entry permits |
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| kidkensei wrote: |
Ok, so Ive downloaded my permit from the net but it seems unreasonable that I have to go in person to the regional immigration office all the way in Nagano. I didnt find any mailing instructions on the government website either.
Has anyone done this before?
Kensei |
.....do you have a link there chief?........ |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:28 am Post subject: |
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I was just reading about this yesterday since I have to make a trip up to Nagano for the very same reason.
It seems that they could ge a little anal retentive if you sent just anyone as your proxy without good reason.
http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/kanri/shyorui/06.html |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:51 am Post subject: |
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| At least you will only have to make this extra trip once. When you renew your visa (assuming you stay in Japan), you can get your re-entry permit on the same day as you receive your renewal. |
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BobbyBan
Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:52 am Post subject: |
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The applicant's relative, housemate or other similar person who are regarded as appropriate by the director of regional immigration bureau (if the applicant is not able to visit the regional immigration bureau by himself/herself because of illness or other reasons).
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Bit vague isn't it, regarding "other similar person", similar to a relative or a housemate and "other reasons". Does this include "working schedule", "lack of funds", "can't be bothered" I wonder?
Also interesting what kind of discretionary powers the director of regional immigration bureau has.
Thanks for the link seklawaria. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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Applicant must fill in necessary application forms, make ready attached documents and submit a service counter at regional immigration office.
Where to submit The regional immigration office in charge of applicant's intended address
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Underline my emphasis. Yes, you have to bring in the paperwork to immigration. Where else did you think you had to go?
My question is, why can't you go? It's not like a trivial matter. I won't harp on the fact that you should have done this when you got/renewed your visa, but take that as a reminder for next time.
As for those regional immigration offices, not knowing where you live, all I can do is point you to this list of addresses and tell you to submit as directed above.
http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/info/index.html
Call in advance to be absolutely sure of their hours. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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What I find a little hard to understand is how a relative could be turned down as a proxy, yet Mr "Tom, Dick and Harry" Travel Agent are allowed to waltz in with some random foreigners passport and hey-presto... re-entry permit.
And how does a relative get put in the same category as a housemate?!
I wonder if I could pass off the guy who walks his evil poodle passed my apartment every day as a other similar person... I've seen and said more words to him than some people have to their housemates 
On a serious note though: Is it normal to just hand over your passport to a travel agent like that? If a travel agent or anybody other than the police or a proper visa/immigration authourity back home asked me to leave my passport in their care for any length of time, I'd tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier. |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
I won't harp on the fact that you should have done this when you got/renewed your visa, but take that as a reminder for next time.
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Glenski, can I ask how someone who gets their visa outside Japan could get a re-entry permit at the same time? I first came to Japan on a WHV, and than again on a Humanities visa a few years later- both times I got my visa from the Japanese consulate in Auckland, and I wasn't aware that they processed re-entry permits. Do consulates and embassies in fact process re-entry permits? If not, where else could I have got one? |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
My question is, why can't you go? It's not like a trivial matter. I won't harp on the fact that you should have done this when you got/renewed your visa, but take that as a reminder for next time.
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Sure you have to go to the regional immigration to renew your visa, but I don't see how I could have got it when I got my visa.
Firstly, My visa was issued in the UK. Secondly, many of us new arrivals haven't had to go to the regional immigration place yet. I only had to go to my city's yakusho to do my ARC registration. |
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BobbyBan
Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
My question is, why can't you go? It's not like a trivial matter. I won't harp on the fact that you should have done this when you got/renewed your visa, but take that as a reminder for next time. |
Glenski, when I first got my visa I got it in England before I left for Japan. I had no idea about the re-entry permit thingy at the time. How do you know that a similar thing hasn't happened here with the OP?
Take a chill pill! |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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Deluged with responses to my response, I feel the need to respond. Ok, folks, I honestly didn't know whether you can get a reentry permit before you come to Japan. It's been a long time since I got my first visa, and I don't recall if it was even an option.
However, 2 points come to mind:
1. If you get your visa outside of Japan, I thought it's probably issued eventually through the Japan embassy/consulate in your country. That would be the most likely place, but I just now found out news to the contrary. Read below and you'll see.
2. Whether such a thing is possible, the OP has been here how long? He's on JET, which means he started in August. Visas are for a year or 3 years. Somewhere within that time span there just has to be time to march down to immigration and get the reentry permit. Since it's such an important piece of paperwork, an employer would be stupid or bullyish to refuse to let an employee have time to get it. Doesn't matter how far away the office is, either. I live where the nearest immigration office is a 2.5 hour DRIVE BY CAR. Make the time.
kidkensei is a JET ALT. http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=756751&highlight=#756751
(That means they've been around for 11 months or so, hence my remarks above in #2 and in the other post.) Doesn't JET take all this into account and help the ALTs to get their reentry permits (or at least explain it during the first day of orientation)?
A quick check of the JET Guidebook shows that embassies / consulates cannot issue reentry permits. (section 4.7.2)
The same guidebook also clearly states what to do when a JET wants to go outside the country.
| Quote: |
4.7. Travelling Abroad
2) Passport
When travelling overseas, JET participants should take a copy of the photo page of their passport, as well as a copy of the page(s) that show the Status of Residence, Period of Stay and Re-entry Permit. |
So, JET is indeed aware of what is needed. I ask again whether the reentry permit is obtained (or at least clearly explained) during orientation? The guidebook is certainly clear enough. See the very next subsection:
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3) Re-entry Permit
If you leave Japan during your contract and plan to return, you must obtain a Re-entry Permit from your Regional Immigration Bureau (refer to ―Immigration Bureaus / Information Centres‖ - see appendix). These can usually be issued in one day, but not always. You are recommended to do this at least two weeks before departure. A single Re-entry Permit is �3,000; a multiple one is �6,000 giving you unlimited re-entry. Permits are valid for the duration of your current Period of Stay. If you do not have a Re-entry Permit stamped in your passport, your re-entry into Japan will be made complicated.
Please contact the Immigration Bureau nearest you for specific information about procedures. The officers may not speak English, but all forms are written in both Japanese and English.
Immigration Information Centres offer consultation and information on immigration procedures. Inquiries from foreign residents and related parties concerning entry and stay procedures are welcomed in Japanese and other languages.
Office hours: Monday to Friday (except holidays) 09:00-12:00 and 13:00-16:00
Immigration Bureau website:
www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/index.html (English)
www.immi-moj.go.jp (Japanese) |
Pretty thorough, and given kidkensei's length of stay so far, I am still asking about what has been done in the past 11 months to prepare for this? And, August is a down time for schools, so can any JET ALT explain whether you are expected to be in the school during that initial month in Japan, or if you are free to get the reentry permit then?
No need to tell me to take a "chill pill". It's common sense planning here that I'm talking about. People (including me sometimes) rag on JET, but it seems on the surface that this time they have their ducks in a row. |
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BobbyBan
Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:27 pm Post subject: |
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Glenski, the OP's question was whether or not they had to turn up at immigration in person. The JET guidelines that you quoted don't seem to specify whether or not this is the case, nor do they specify where the nearest immigration office will be. This is not a bad thing on JET's part, it's quite reasonable, they provide information about teh re-entry permit itself.
What isn't particularly reasonable, in my opinion, is your insistence that the OP should have thought about all this long ago and should have absorbed all this information during their JET orientation when, it seems more likely, other things would have been at the front of their mind. It would be akin to me scolding a student for not using SVA appropriately when I've told them hundreds of times!
Anyway, the point that a re-entry permit isn't issued through embassies and consulates is what we told you, that means kidkensei is unlikely in the extreme to have been issued one, and surely you can't think they would have been issued one in orientation, you must know better than that!
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Pretty thorough, and given kidkensei's length of stay so far, I am still asking about what has been done in the past 11 months to prepare for this? And, August is a down time for schools, so can any JET ALT explain whether you are expected to be in the school during that initial month in Japan, or if you are free to get the reentry permit then?
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Glenski, people change their plans all the time and really it is none of our business whether the OP was planning to stay for only one year and go home or whether or not they had any plans to make a short trip to Korea or Hong Kong in their holidays. You don't know when the OP wants to travel but we can assume it is sometime between now and the expiry of their first-year visa and we don't know how spontaneously they decided to make the trip or whether the trip is coming up very soon and it isn't our business either.
For all that you may say about "basic planning" not all of immigration's procedures are going to be that well-known to newbies especially the re-entry permit which is a little bizarre anyway. So, okay, don't take a chill pill but don't think that your stern lectures on what the OP should already have done are warranted in this case. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:14 am Post subject: |
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| BobbyBan wrote: |
| Glenski, the OP's question was whether or not they had to turn up at immigration in person. |
Agreed. That has been answered by others. He doesn't necessarily.
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| The JET guidelines that you quoted don't seem to specify whether or not this is the case, nor do they specify where the nearest immigration office will be. |
I didn't quote all of what JET had to say, but I thought it was clear when they mentioned the regional offices and an appendix which a JET participant could look up.
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| What isn't particularly reasonable, in my opinion, is your insistence that the OP should have thought about all this long ago and should have absorbed all this information during their JET orientation |
Let's agree to disagree on the reasonableness of this line of thinking instead of dragging it out. I'm willing. (I could argue your SVA analogy similarly.)
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| Anyway, the point that a re-entry permit isn't issued through embassies and consulates is what we told you, that means kidkensei is unlikely in the extreme to have been issued one |
Yes, I agree that this is a major point here, but did you read where I did indeed finally agree with you (plural) on this?
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| and surely you can't think they would have been issued one in orientation, you must know better than that! |
I am not now, nor have I ever been on JET and you'll have to forgive me for not looking up every detail on what happens during orientation.
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| Glenski, people change their plans all the time and really it is none of our business whether the OP was planning to stay for only one year and go home or whether or not they had any plans to make a short trip to Korea or Hong Kong in their holidays. You don't know when the OP wants to travel but we can assume it is sometime between now and the expiry of their first-year visa |
Which has been 11 months or so since he landed here. I must insist that this is more than enough time to ask his own JET people the questions above and to get himself to immigration. Yes, we don't know how spontaneous he was in making these plans, and I would ask that kidkensei help us out here by chipping in on this point and why he never got the reentry permit until now. No sense in either you or I belaboring this, is there? We would just be shooting in the dark on speculation. How about it, kidkensei?
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| For all that you may say about "basic planning" not all of immigration's procedures are going to be that well-known to newbies especially the re-entry permit which is a little bizarre anyway. |
Sorry, Bobby, but I disagree about the procedures NOT being well-known. They are right there in the darned guidelines book!
As for bizarre, I don't know what you mean. They seem pretty clear and straightforward to me. |
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Shonai Ben
Joined: 15 Feb 2003
Posts: 617
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| Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:20 am Post subject: |
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thanks for the link chief........ |
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