TOKYO, Nov. 9, 2021—In March 2021, a 33-year-old Sri Lankan woman, Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali, died at a Japanese immigration bureau detention center for serious illness and hunger, the physical conditions the Japanese authorities only reluctantly admitted posthumously and with few details. On Nov. 9, 2021, her family members filed a criminal suit with the Japanese public prosecutors against Nagoya Immigration Bureau officials for an intentional negligence of official duty and murder. Her death sparked an international uproar against Japan’s brutal treatment of undocumented foreign nationals in detention and those overstaying visas and without health insurance and money. The condition can be worse and probably in violation of human rights than what South American immigrants are exposed to at U.S. detention facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border.
If you don’t have enough money and health insurance and/or a job, Japan is a perilous country to live as a foreigner. If you don’t have any of the three and get caught by immigration officials, you’re likely to be confronted with one bad thing after another.
Arriving in Japan as a foreign tourist without a traveler health insurance and get sick, you would be asked to pay a medical bill 2 to 3 times higher than the Japanese who are covered by the National Health Insurance policy. That’s not surprising and unusual for international travelers in many countries. It’s the reason why they buy insurance before leaving their home countries.
If/when foreign nationals who overstay their visas and don’t have a job and/or health insurance are caught and detailed by the Japanese immigration authorities, they may be exposed to Murphy’s Law conditions.
According to a recent Mainichi newspaper article, a 42-year-old Cameroon woman died Jan. 23, 2021 in a Tokyo hospital apparently for insufficient medical treatment at an Immigration Bureau detention facility. She arrived in Japan in 2004 and applied for refugee status but had been rejected and detailed twice. In 2018, she was released from the detention center but was diagnosed for breast cancer and became a homeless. She was aided by homeless supporters and, at their urging, applied for permanent residency. The document was delivered to her 3 hours after her death. Her hospital bill, 7 million yen ($68,000), remains unpaid, the newspaper said.
Foreign nationals without long-term stay or permanent residence visas, and without deep pockets, face much higher medical bills than NHI holders whose medical payments are closely regulated by the Japanese government. Non-NHI medical costs have risen even steeper after the Japanese government ran a medical tourism campaign to lure affluent medical tourists from China and elsewhere a few years ago since hospitals can charge whatever they want. That’s bad news for poor undocumented foreign nationals, particularly those that are detained by the Immigration since the authorities basically encourage detainees to pay for their medical costs.
The vicious cycle doesn’t end there: Undocumented foreign nationals are denied the right to apply for the government’s minimum living protection program that gives the monthly survival stipend plus rent-free housing and medical insurance.
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Insight Into the Future