The clanking of Tokyo trains going by still echoes in the head of a 27-year-old Congolese man as he recalls the dreadful few weeks he spent in Japan in January 2016 traveling from station to station, homeless, in search of a place where he could survive the cruel cold nights.

The man, who declined to be named out of fear for his safety, said he came to Japan in November 2015 from the Democratic Republic of Congo after fleeing from a deadly police crackdown on civil dissent against the government of President Joseph Kabila.

Over the past year, the man has waited for Japan to recognize him as a refugee — a feat he has yet to accomplish — scraping by on what little financial support he gets from nonprofit organizations and the meager pay he earns from working at a wood manufacturing factory near Tokyo.