Solution for Unlawful Stay
QUESTION
I’ve been separated from my Filipino husband five years ago in the Philippines though I have two children. After that, in May 2013, I visited my friend in Japan as a tourist using a fake passport, which a travel agency arranged for me. Then, after a few months, I got married to a Japanese named Hitoshi Toki on January 13, 2014 with my fake name. The Japanese Immigration granted the change of my residence status from tourist to “Spouse of Japanese National” since we submitted the marriage report issued by the municipal office.
We have no children. So, I do want to invite my children into Japan. However, my fake name is different from the true name on my children’s birth certificate. So, I need the correction of my fake name. What should I do first? Will I be deported back to the Philippines when this correction be disclosed to the Immigration? I need your help.
– Edna Toki
ANSWER
As you see, your case really includes many complicated legal problems. I do hope you could understand these problems, and would carry out the following actions with me:
1．Marriage annulment. What you should accomplish first is taking the measure of marriage annulment. As you know quite very well about the Philippine Law (Philippine Family Law), there exists a system of “Marriage Annulment”, but not the “Divorce”.
Under the Philippine Family Law and Japanese Registration Law, in order to form marriage with a Japanese husband, you must annul your marriage record with ex-Filipino husband first. According to the notification announced from PSA (Ex. NSO), those who would like to annul one’s marriage must plead his/her petition to the Regional Trial Court (abbreviation: RTC) to annul his/her marriage, and obtain the decision of RTC. Surely, this procedure is always required to perform through the RTC by a Filipino lawyer in the Philippines, but not Japan. As far as I know, it usually requires about six months – one year.
Here, the most important thing what your cautions are required is not grasping a forged document after you are deceived by the honeyed words of the dishonest trader who is performing recommendation business in the neighborhood of the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, or a Filipino shyster in the Philippines. In fact, it will be cleared whether it is the genuine one or not since the Japanese Immigration Bureau is always making sure it to PSA whether it is forged one or not via the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines. If RTC makes a decision, the judgment concerning this determination is supposed to be notified by a lawyer to PSA via LCR, and the marriage record currently kept in LCR and PSA is also supposed to be corrected by each.
Then, when you would like to request your record of marriage to PSA, you are supposed to be delivered the document entitled “Advisory on marriages” in which you can find the fact of marriage annulment with the former husband there, and it proves that you are made an “unmarried person(single person)” by this “Advisory on marriages.”
2. The required documents for surrender and reporting your illegal entry to the Immigration Bureau. Your case comes under the “Illegal Entry” specified in Article-24, paragraph 1 of the Immigration ACT without any doubt. On the present Immigration ACT, there are 40 items of the deportation reason, which carries out the deportation from Japan, stipulated in the Act so far, and the “Illegal Entry” has been positioned on the top of this article. It means that the “Illegal Entry” is the most vicious case in the deportation reason. Therefore, under this reason, those who come under the “Illegal Entry” are, “as a rule”, supposed to be deported to his/her home country by force. However, even if he/she comes under the case of “Illegal Entry”, there also exists those who can be granted the resident permission without carrying out deportation.
Now, what and how should you do in order to reside in Japan lawfully with your present Japanese husband without being deported by force? The only way is that you would be granted the “Special Permission for Residence” from the Minister of Justice after you would surrender and declare your situation/background. Yes, you surely have to prove yourself that you are the person who comes under such requirements and conditions based on the Law, of course.
Then, let me explain the important thing how you should do it in detail.
1. Creation and making up the documents
It is absolutely necessary to create and make up the documents which you do want to substantiate and prove before you would surrender to the Immigration. There are so many cases, which any documents cannot not be prepared before the surrender either, but I never recommended to my client to do so. Because, all deportation cases are always progressing by the pace of an officer of the Immigration Bureau, and there is a possibility that the advantageous information for you may not be fully taken into consideration.
Then, you may ask for fair and proper decision that should be performed by the officer in charge based on the written documents, which you must put the advantageous information for you beforehand. The officer in charge will create and make up the “Written Statement”, which your situation/background must be filled in, at least three times or more after he/she would investigate, examine and hear from you. In that case, an official will quote the contents of your written document if you have already submitted it, which you substantiated and proved beforehand.
This becomes advantageous to you, as you know. For your information, these documents are consisting of “Written Declaration” specified by the Immigration Bureau, “Written Statement”, “Petition” and others. If you trust me, my office always incorporate “School career”, “Work experience”, “Marriage history”, “Entry/departure history”, “Criminal record”, “Deportation history”, “Family status”, “Special situation that should be considered” and etc. from the time when you were born into these documents.
2. A lawyer’s role
Don’t you regard the lawyer as it being almighty? No, he/she is not. The lawyer can do that he/she is possible to understand you and your family, and can create and make up the documents, which are for substantiating and proving that you have a sufficient conditions to be granted the “Special Permission for Residence”. Moreover, this work is his/her subject. Therefore, it is just “soothing” that he/she follows you to the Immigration Bureau together or encourages you.
That is, according to the Immigration Act, no one has the right to be with you at the Immigration Bureau. Therefore, no one will admit to enter the room or sit together with you by the authority while the Immigration Bureau is executing your deportation procedure since persons other than you (Ex. lawyer etc.) are exactly “fifth wheels”. Some people including you may think that the lawyers who stands by outside of a room or follow to the Immigration Bureau together with you are secure. However, such action is the purpose to obtain “remuneration” from you and it stands on no role for you on deportation procedure.
It, expressing in other words, is that good lawyer who is helpful to you must always be as follows. He/she quitely understands you and your family deeply, and he/she can create, draw and make up the written documents, which is possible to make persuade and understand the authority for obtaining your “Special Permission for Residence” from legal and technical viewpoints. I often see the childish contents in the written documents made by lawyer, which do not make any sense at all. Therefore, you have to choose and determine after hearing his/her career etc., confirming whether he/she makes a contract, and the contents of the contract when you will commission to a lawyer. Therefore, you should refuse the consignment to a lawyer who does not draw up a contract. Anyway, you yourself have to choose, discern and determine whether it commissions or not.
It is not a problem whether a lawyer follows to the Immigration Bureau together with you or not.
3. Surrender and declaration to the Immigration Bureau
As you are anxious about it, the official of the Immigration Bureau can search and detect easily the fact that you entered a country illegally. For example, if the fingerprint identification is carried out at an airport, it will become clear immediately, and when you would be arrested by the police in accidents, such as a violation of traffic regulations, and are handed over to the Immigration Bureau, the official will become clear by fingerprint identification easily.
Besides, the correspondence and measure by the Immigration Bureau naturally differs from the case where the fact which becomes clear your illegal entry after being caught, and the case where the fact which becomes clear it by you surrender. If possible, you better independently surrender to the Immigration Bureau by yourself. Especially, the point I want you to care about is that the deportation procedure is an administration procedure, but not a trial.
Therefore, you who entered a country illegally have to prove and explain by yourself, and a lawyer is impossible to be you and cannot enact it instead of you.
For your information, the official of the Immigration Bureau will investigate, examine, and hear on all things focusing on investigation of the fact which you entered a country illegally. In the investigation/examination process, the official sometimes request you to carry out filing the “Statement for the Correction of Family Register” to the Family Court in order to make legal relation with the present Japanese husband.
That is, it is a legislative action, which corrects the name and birth date indicated under the fake name on Japanese husband’s family register. The Family Court can originally receive it, but it may not receive sometimes by the Family Court since it is very vicious contents like your case. And, the Court instructs you that the priority may certainly be given to the investigation and examination by the Immigration Bureau. Therefore, you must follow and correspond to the directions by the Family Court and the Immigration Bureau.
In addition to this, the official of the Immigration Bureau will report to the Minister of Justice (or Regional Immigration Bureaus chief) based on the proofs collected and accumulated by leading through the investigation, examination and hearing. After judgment, the Minister of Justice (or Regional Immigration Bureaus chief) will inform the decision in the light of an administration precedent and a judicial precedent in about two weeks after he would have finished the determination whether the “Special Permission for Residence” should be given or not to you.
4. Acquisition of passport, which indicated your real name
When you would be granted the “Special Permission for Residence”, the “Residence Card” is supposed to be delivered from the Minister of Justice (or Immigration Bureau chief). Then, you can apply for passport issuance at the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo (or General Consulate in Osaka) attaching this Residence Card issued from the Immigration, and obtain your passport with your real name.
5. Correction of family register
Except for those who corrected the family register in the process of deportation procedure, those who unfinished the correction of family register must state the family register correction to the Family Court with the required documents, such as husband’s family register, your passport, and a residence card. If this statement would be accepted, the fake name described in your husband’s family register will be corrected with the real name. In this way, you can reside in Japan as a lawful resident person, and you can invite your children in the Philippines based on the Certificate of Eligibility.
Office name: Miyoshi International Legal Counsel Office
Telephone/Fax (Japanese/English): 090-1436-4107(Mobile phone)
E-mail: miyoshi@ipcworld.co.jp or joshua-galasha@mvg.biglobe.ne.jp (Japanese/English) OR p-digest@ipcworld.co.jp(English/Tagalog)
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