Former Nagoya Immigration Detention Officer Speaks

 

Nagoya Immigration Center

It was a scorching afternoon in Nagoya. A storm began to rage just before I reached Kanayama Station's entrance. Dripping with sweat and rain I made my way upstairs to a coffee shop to meet a gentleman. As I entered a man stood and waved. Being the only foreigner it was a sure assumption I was the one he was there to talk to.

A former employee of an immigration detention center in Japan, Sato (name changed for protection), revealed that he felt like staff members "looked down on" foreign detainees by calling them by dehumanizing jargon referring to "bodies" taken under custody. “They used the term gara from migara, a term used in law enforcement to refer to a body under custody. I felt this dehumanized the people in our custody and care.”

Sato continued, “There have been cases of foreign nationals being driven to death while detained at facilities, due to poor living conditions as well as an insufficient system for providing medical services. I felt something was wrong in the way detainees were treated at the immigration facility and how medical services were provided there. I felt that colleagues were always being cruel toward the detainees. Mocking their pain, laughing at them being sick, and always teasing them as foreign trash their own country did not want. Staff would make monkey noises as detainees would tell them about their symptoms. They would say the women would die alone as no man would ever want them.”

Sato recalls one old Vietnamese man, “The man in the best Japanese he could speak told an officer about severe pain in his chest. The officer shrugged and told him everyone dies. The old man ended up dying that night. But what if an ambulance had been called right then? It pains me to think about it.”

There has also been a number of cases where detainees at immigration detention centers were subjected to violence by a group of numerous staff members. In January 2019, a video was revealed showing immigration officials restraining Deniz, a 42-year-old Kurd, at the Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center. The footage showed at least seven officials had pinned Deniz to the floor, although he showed resistance by saying "it hurts," and, "please stop." The officials handcuffed him with his arms twisted behind his back while straddling him, and yelled at him while poking his neck with their fingers. Deniz filed a lawsuit in August 2019 seeking compensation from the Japanese government, and the case is still in litigation.

Sato says, “One day, I saw employees at the guard station watching and laughing over a video capturing the moment an Iranian detainee was being subdued with choke hold and chest pressure. An official involved in the act had said proudly, 'I got this one. Look he goes limp.' As he showed himself using a choke hold with a baton. The other staff present seemed to be amused too. There was no way I could agree with what was happening. Although it wasn't everyone at the immigration center, there were people who looked down on the detainees and were cruel to them.”

There were no full-time doctors at the six immigration detention facilities across Japan, according to documents by the Immigration Services Agency. Doctors visit the Tokyo Regional Immigration Services Bureau, which can accommodate 414 detainees, the highest number in Japan, four days a week for four hours at a time. Medical professionals visit the Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center with 253, or the second greatest number of detainees, five days a week for four hours each.

Sato shakes his head and says, “When detainees complained of feeling sick, there were many cases where they couldn't be examined right away by a doctor, to me showing inadequate handling of cases. In order to receive medical examinations, detainees must submit application papers containing descriptions of their symptoms to responsible officials, but there were apparently many instances where officials did not respond immediately, saying to bring it in tomorrow I don't have time today.”

Wishma Sandamali, a Sri Lankan woman who died on March 6, 2021 at age 33 while being kept in detention at the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau, also told a supporter, "I want to go to a hospital outside and get an IV drip, but the immigration officials won't bring me to one." The woman had only been able to receive an examination at an external hospital two days prior to her death.

However, she had been brought to a psychiatrist, and she was suspected of feigning her illness. The psychiatrist who examined her wrote in a patient referral document that "it can be expected that her condition will get better if she is temporarily released." However, such facts were not revealed in the interim reports, and only made mention of "feigned illness."

Sato wells with tears and says, “Since the detention facility accommodates such a large number of people 24 hours a day, isn't it necessary to either permanently station staff capable of making medical decisions, or have a system allowing detainees to be examined immediately by a large external hospital. The more people are kept detained the more hopeless they see their future. They give up and become overly compliant hoping it helps staff treat them better. It doesn't because the cruel staff see them becoming weak and useless for anything. It is a cruel cycle.”

Thomas Mann, lecturer of criminal policy theory at Nagoya University and an expert on detention centers, raised a structural problem and said, “It is stipulated in the law that for prisons and other facilities under the jurisdiction of the justice ministry, directors in charge at the facilities are also responsible for medical services. Jails and prisons have a codified process that must be followed for citizens and foreigners alike. Meanwhile, there are no clear provisions for immigration facilities, and in practice, medical decisions are made under the director's discretion. Most of these people don't hold medical licenses, and decisions on medical work requiring specialized knowledge are being made by those outside the profession.”

Sato thinks and says, “I believe the problem is institutional. It affects all the immigration detention centers When you see the detainees as bodies and not humans then it begins to devalue those people. It makes the people seem they just want to complain and not that they have real illness that needs attention. It then makes it easy to imitate officers above you in mocking those people. The detainees have no voice. Many cannot communicate in Japanese and 99% of the detainment staff only speak Japanese. If they are abused who can the detainees tell? These detention staff are not the smiling, helpful immigration desk attendants. The detention staff are security officers with police power. They know mistakes will be covered to protect the blue shirt club. It made me sick so I left.”

Chris Hollingsworth