The Calderon affair — the expulsion of a Filipino couple who entered Japan illegally but whose Japanese-fluent daughter was born and raised in Japan — is seen as an indictment of Japan's confused immigration policies. And rightly.
On the one hand, Japan says that with its birthrates at record lows, it needs more people — childbearing females especially. Yet it is busy expelling just the kind of people it says it needs.
The confusion has been around a long time. At the height of the clampdown on illegal foreigners five years ago I got to see the Shinagawa holding center for visa overstayers and others turning themselves in voluntarily. Most of the about-to-be deported were young, fit-looking and attractive people, the majority female. Many were good Japanese speakers. Some had children playing in Japanese with other children.