On a morning in mid-September, Utinan Won hugged his mother and then watched as she passed through departures at Tokyo's Narita airport on her way to Bangkok.

Two and a half months earlier, judges in a Tokyo court upheld deportation orders against 16-year-old Utinan and his mother, Lonsan Phaphakdee, both Thai nationals living in Japan on provisional release status.

But, in their ruling, the judges laid out a path for Utinan to stay in Japan — if his mother left the country.