. . . and then we were deported.

No, we haven't been deported, but it seemed like we were going to be for a little while.

What Happened:

Right before Christmas, Mark got a phone call from the Immigration office in Takamatsu. He had no idea what they wanted because the person who called didn't speak English and Mark couldn't figure out what he was saying with his limited Japanese. So Mark's boss contacts them and they tell her that there's a new procedure that we need to go through for Emma. They say that we just need to go down to their office with some documents so they can update their files, or something like that. They there's no rush on it, take on your time. So we do. We have a lot of little day trips planned for after Christmas and New Year's, so we figure we'll stop by on our way somewhere else.

We made it to the Immigration office on the last day of Mark's vacation. But things are not what we expected when we arrive. Instead of waiting in the nice, bright main Immigration office, we're sent to wait in a dark, gloomy corridor by an electronically locked door. There's another family there, so we don't feel that anything is wrong. An immigration officer takes our documents to make photocopies and when he comes back, he leads us to a cold vacant room, with only a table and a couple of chairs in it. We still think things are okay, until he pulls out the "Flowchart for Deportation Procedures."

Wait, what?

Yep. The real reason they wanted us to come in was to inform us that Emma has overstayed her visa and they are starting an investigation against her.

When babies are born to foreigners in Japan, they automatically get a two month visa (which we didn't know)and Emma's expired in August (which we didn't know). We should have gotten her a new one then (which we also didn't know)but we didn't. We weren't able to get all her US documents until September, and you've got to have a passport before you can have a visa. Besides, we spent a lot of time at the city office in Kanonji making sure she had all her documents in order. They told us she was fine, that she didn't need anything else, and we believed them.

Oh, and the officer who is telling us all this, doesn't speak enough English to explain what is going on. The only fluent English speaking officer is out at the airport manning the customs desk. So we've got this guy trying to get us to sign a bunch of forms (all in Japanese) who can't tell us what they're for, and all we know is that its about deportation and Emma.

I had visions of being escorted to a bus with her and made to get on a plane that evening. But, after a few phone calls to Mark's boss, we learned that she was not being deported, only that she is being "investigated". My six and a half month old is being investigated by the Japanese government.

This is only the start of the craziness. We have to go back in about a month for a hearing. They didn't have a date for us, but they will let us know when they schedule it.

We may be able to drag this process out until our contract ends in March, or if we get a new job in the states, we could leave early and avoid it all together. I can't help thinking that this could have been avoided if they had just sent a note in the mail or something. They know she was born. They know what sort of documents she needs and by when. Couldn't that have come in a welcome packet? A sort of "congratulations on being born, here's what you need to stay legal" thing? I would have found that more useful then all the nursing they gave me.