I have long heard of this story in CNN of a Filipino-Japanese 13 year old girl named Noriko Calderon who was born in Japan to a Filipino couple named Arlan Cruz Calderon, 36, and Sarah Calderon, 38, who came to Japan in 1993 illegally using fake passports. Noriko can only speak Japanese.

Yesterday, April 13, Noriko’s parent’s Arlan and  Sarah were finally deported and left Tokyo’s Narita airport for the Philippines leaving behind their daughter in Japan to live with an aunt, a relative of her father. Noriko who was crying was there at the airport to see her parents off with a crowd of reporters behind her. I saw that very sad scene for a mother like me just minutes ago in CNN which gave this report:

“Filipinos Arlan and Sarah Calderon illegally entered Japan in the early 1990s on fake passports. They married and had a daughter, Noriko…

But her future in the only country she’s ever known went into limbo when Japanese immigration authorities arrested her mother in 2006.

Her parents decided to fight Japan’s notoriously rigid immigration laws and for three years under a harsh media spotlight, they argued their case all the way to the country’s High Court, saying Arlan is gainfully employed and their daughter only speaks Japanese.

The family lost their case in the High Court, and Japan ordered Arlan and Sarah Calderon be deported back to the Philippines.”

The case has drawn intense media coverage in Japan and there are more than 20,000 people who had signed a petition asking the Japan government to allow all three to stay together as a family in Japan. The case has also attracted the attention of Amnesty International as well as the UN Human Rights Council, which has asked Japan for information about it. The couple Arlan and Sarah cannot go back to Japan until after five years but they asked to be able to visit their daughter once a year.

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