Regarding the June 30 article "Activist sees holes in bills to snare illegals": It is heartening to read about a Japanese national with a heart that cares about issues of the non-Japanese community. Akira Hatate (director of the nongovernment organization Japan Civil Liberties Union) is absolutely right to say that under this new law the government will not only tighten the leash on law-abiding foreigners in Japan but also hound illegal overstayers constantly as if they were real criminals.
Overall fear about turning themselves in will be so great that few overstayers will come forward. And will there be Japanese lawyers to help? The criteria for overstayers like the Calderon family earlier this year to get special permission to remain in Japan are still biased, ambiguous and at the mercy of the Justice Ministry. Japan must show a human face to such immigrants.
If Japan is happy to become more like what it was 200 years ago as it sets out to build a society that depends increasingly on robotic slaves, I think the current law will surely help in that direction. But I doubt that's what the Liberal Democratic Party has in mind when it refers to the "Beautiful Japan" campaign. Lawmakers must think of what they are losing with this new law rather than what they are achieving. This new law will soon turn out to be a fiasco for modern Japan.