Khin Maung Latt of Myanmar, his Filipino wife, Maria Hope Jamili, and their two daughters have no place to call home but Japan, and they are on shaky ground.
The couple met and married in Tokyo, speak to each other in Japanese, until recently had a steady income and witnessed the birth of their two girls here -- kids who speak only Japanese -- but like their parents are not legal residents.
Their decade together has been accompanied by the fear of sudden deportation, a fear that came true on Oct. 31 when the Tokyo Immigration Bureau took the 46-year-old Khin Maung Latt into custody after the Tokyo High Court turned down his request for refugee status two days earlier.