Similarly to other immigration countries, in Japan and the UK the immigration enforcement apparatus has expanded in response to the heighten visibility of irregular migration in public consciousness in recent years. Stricter immigration policing, including expansive use of detention and removal, has been accompanied by so-called ‘soft’ enforcement measures, with greater attention being paid to diffused controls on access to public services and means of livelihoods (see Yuval-Davis et al., 2019; Bloch & Schuster, 2005).
Deporting migrants ‘voluntarily’
In 2018, Japan removed 9369 (Ministry of Justice, 2019), largely via voluntary or assisted return. Only 216 people were forcibly removed. While removal may not be widely used, immigration enforcement authorities can easily detain irregular migrants without any court involvement or decision. According to Global Detention Project (2020) the overall number of immigration detainees in 2019 was 22,624, with 1054 detained on a given day. Advocates have lamented the ‘policy of detaining all (zenken shūyō shugi)’, and length of detention. Not surprisingly, fear of detention is more widely discussed among irregular migrants than deportation.
Often, those lined up for removal are given the opportunity to negotiate and even organise return themselves. For example, Myrna, from the Philippines, and her husband, a Japanese citizen, had sought special permission for residence, however the immigration authorities did not grant her residence because Myrna had a criminal record, having entered the country on a forged passport. She also had been previously removed from Japan. However, immigration authorities proposed a deal to the couple: if Myrna returned to the Philippines voluntarily, instead of the statutory 10-year ban to enter Japan she would be offered a one-year ban. The mediation of her Japanese husband contributed to the positive outcome. Myrna was sceptical, but her husband was confident the immigration authorities would fulfil their part of the deal:
I tried to persuade Myrna to take this deal. Initially Myrna did not trust the immigration authorities. It is only one year, I told her. Why not to get this deal?
The couple even organised a farewell barbeque party for friends and relatives before her departure.
For others, like Armand, the immigration authorities were less favourable. Armand, a migrant man from the Philippines, was deported in July 2018 despite having lived in Japan for 25 years. After receiving his deportation order, to strengthen his plead to stay in Japan he had considered marrying a permanent resident Filipina. Immigration authorities tend to be tolerant to marriage cases. It looked like immigration continued provisional release every month to wait Armand’s marriage. However, the marriage didn’t occur. Then, Armand was finally detained and forcibly deported.
While forced removals are rare, detention occurs often, and causes concerns and fears among many irregular migrants. Many of the respondents mentioned being unable to sleep at night because of fear of detention, and therefore being unable to repay their debt and support their families in Japan and at home. Fernand, a migrant man from the Philippines, has a partner and two small children in Japan. He has a temporary deferral of deportation order that is renewed on a monthly basis when he goes to the immigration office. He knows that one day he may be refused renewal, and be detained and deported.
I cannot sleep at all because of fear of detention. If I am detained, how can my family survive? After extending my provisional release for a month, I can sleep for a week or so. But the next visit is coming very soon. Then I start to not be able to sleep well again.
Contingency planning is also on the card. Sukhvir, a migrant man from India, works as a carpenter on weekdays and has a part-time job at weekends to make some savings for his family to prepare for what he calls ‘the worst scenario’, that is being detained by immigration authorities and unable to support his family in Japan.
Immigration enforcement and family life in the UK
Despite the ‘law and order’ rhetoric that underpins the hostile environment policy, recent UK estimates on the irregular migrant population (Pew Research Centre, 2019) and data on forced and assisted removal (Home Office, 2020) confirm the persistence of a sizeable irregular migrant population in the country, and that the ‘deportation gap’, that is ‘the gap between the number of people eligible for removal by the state at any time and the number of people a state actually removes (deports)’ (Gibney, 2008, p. 149), may even have expanded under hostile environment policy. According to Pew Research Centre (2019) the UK population of ‘unauthorized’ migrants is estimated between 800,000-1,200,000 at the end of 2017, while both forced and voluntary removals have been on a declining trend in the last decade.
Worries about being sent home were prevalent throughout all UK interviews, though the reasons for and strength of fear varied. This was often connected to the reasons for which people migrated in the first place and what was awaiting them in their countries of origin (Bloch et al., 2014). Another factor that influenced feelings about returning home was linked to the configuration of their family, including whether they had children born in the UK or not and where their partner was from. Fear of family separation due to different legal status and circumstances was widespread among participants. Some interviewees, worn out by the experience of ‘illegality’, were open to the possibility of return, but felt that this was not something they could impose on their children. Chez, a Jamaican mother, explains these thoughts as follows:
There have been a few times I said oh if the kids weren’t here. I would probably have gone back home already, but because they are here, and I think, they are in schools and they’re getting on...they don’t want to go back anymore.
Another factor that influenced the level of fear about being returned home was the costs invested in getting to the UK in the first place and paying off related debts, and importantly any previous experiences of arrest, detention or deportation. Sehriban, a Kurdish mother of two children, had previously been deported to Turkey together with her children. Their experiences of being picked up from their home at five in the morning by immigration officers, then detained and deported to Turkey, were traumatic and left a lasting fear of the authorities with them. Sehriban talks about the way that the UK immigration police took them from their home and then deported them:
One day the police raided the house at five in the morning and took us away to the camp. I didn’t have the psychology to cope anymore and neither did my children. I decided to go. They put us on a plane, they handcuffed my hands...A Turkish hostess came and said ‘what crime have you committed?’ It was a terrible question...
Although many mentioned that they ‘try not to think about it too much’ at the same time they would avoid as much contact with any authorities as possible. For Marcia, a Brazilian mother,
Now [after I became irregular] I am afraid of everything, in relation to needing access to health care for a serious issue, being caught by immigration at work or walking on the street, as it sometimes happens.
Liaising with the UK immigration police plays a central role in the lives of our interviewees. This can involve both being in regular contact with the authorities and avoiding contact with them altogether. In both situations, this results in serious constraints on interviewees’ mobility. Tahira, an Afghan mother of four children, has received an electronic tag and is expected to report to an immigration office on a weekly basis. Apart from not understanding why she has to comply with both these requirements, they also have a serious impact on her daily life and especially on the care of her children. On the other side of the spectrum there are those interviewees who avoid any contact with the police for fear of being picked up and deported. As Jose, a Brazilian father, explains:
I worry that you are on a bus or on the tube and suddenly someone like from the Home Office/Immigration turns up...so you always have this worry.
This has meant that Jose tries to travel as little as possible on public transport and sticks to routes that are familiar to him and where he feels safe. However, looking after children does not always allow this. They have to be taken to and picked up from school, friends’ homes, or other social activities. At the same time, Jose feels that having children in the UK means that his worry about being detected is even stronger, as now they have a life here as a family. It is especially for his children that he does not want to be detected and deported to Brazil as the children’s school is in the UK, everything they know and have is in the UK.
Fear of detection by immigration authorities also affect access to basic services, like healthcare. Few interviewees had sought or needed hospital treatment; the main exception was to give birth. Ahmad, a young man for Afghanistan, explains this in the following way:
No, I am scared to go to the hospital I always think that I will be deported. So I never go to hospital no matter how sick I am.