Anchor: The Justice Minister granted special permits to four of these families. What do these permits mean?

Yamawaki: A special permit to stay is granted to foreigners who should otherwise be deported for violating the immigration law, such as overstaying their visas. It is given on an individual basis, at the discretion of the Justice Minister. Since the early 1990s, when there was a huge increase in the number of overstayers, it has been given mainly to those overstayers with a Japanese spouse. This is the first time for overstayers without Japanese family ties to get a permit. So I think it's an important step toward legalization of the status of overstayers in Japan. This decision may prove to be a turning point in the history of Japanese immigration policy.

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Anchor:  Do you think the Justice Minister has specific criteria or does he just make ad-hoc decisions?

Yamawaki:  Well, I don't think the Minister has specific criteria yet. But we assume he took into consideration the fact that the children who have grown up in Japan and attended Japanese schools would have difficulty adjusting to a new environment if deported to the country of their parents. This is an important consideration, because Japan ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994. Another factor is that many organizations like the one we saw in the story as well as scholars made a request to the Justice Minister to give permits to these 21 overstayers. Last November, a group of concerned scholars issued a statement supporting the overstayers, which was endorsed by almost 600 immigration experts from around the world, and they handed it to the Justice Minister. So the issue attracted the attention of the mass media as well.

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Anchor:  Mr. Yamawaki, San Yu Tun is only one of many foreign nationals trying to build a life in Japan.  How should we approach the problem?

Yamawaki:  As you know, Japan's population is aging fast, and the size of the workforce looks set to decline rapidly. Japanese have become accustomed to affluence, and young people in particular are reluctant to take jobs that are physically demanding. And these are the jobs taken on by the overstaying foreigners. Most of them have no access to health insurance or compensation for accidents on the job. In other words, we benefit greatly from their work without paying the social cost. The Japanese government is planning to alter its immigration policy to admit more foreign workers, in response to economic globalization as well as the aging and decrease of the population. Before taking that step, though, we should consider giving legal status to those foreigners who are already here and have built their lives in our society.