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Raising Cane Rob Perez |
No aloha shown
to elderly Japanese widowAt the bottom of a stairwell, Sawami Mitamura waited anxiously for her 69-year-old mother to emerge from the secured area at Hilo Airport. The elder woman probably would be exhausted after a half-day trip from Japan.
When Yoshiko Mitamura didn't show up, her daughter began to worry.
She returned to the airport later that afternoon, thinking a scheduling mix-up might have forced her mother to catch the next connecting flight from Honolulu.
But Yoshiko Mitamura wasn't on that flight, either. Or the next one. Or the next.
Sick with worry, the younger Mitamura made a few phone calls and learned that her mother, a frail woman who doesn't speak English, had made her scheduled flight from Osaka to Honolulu that day, Sept. 4.
But for reasons unknown to the daughter at the time, her mother had not boarded the early-afternoon connecting flight to Hilo a few hours later.
Sawami Mitamura and others began a frantic search. A missing person's report was filed with the Hilo police. Authorities in Honolulu were alerted and joined the search.
Some feared the worst.
"We could not find out what happened to her after she arrived in Honolulu," said Hilo resident Jim Stoeckel, who is Sawami Mitamura's ex-husband, but still a close family friend. "We looked for her for 13 hours. We thought she was abducted."
The elder Mitamura, as it turned out, was not in harm's way. At least not physically. But she got caught in the clutches of the immigration bureaucracy in Honolulu, a tormenting experience for her emotionally.
Yoshiko Mitamura, who since her husband died in 2000 has spent several months at a time in Hilo with her only child, was sent back to Japan almost immediately after arriving in Honolulu on this trip. She apparently didn't have the proper authorization to enter the United States, according to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service documents.
Once immigration officials determined she couldn't legally enter the country, the woman was told she had to take the next flight to Japan or go to jail, according to Stoeckel.
She wasn't allowed to call her daughter in Hilo.
She wasn't allowed to use the bathroom at the airport.
She wasn't allowed to take a later flight to Japan, even after telling immigration officials that she wasn't feeling well and would like to rest before getting back on a plane, Stoeckel said.
Not only did they rebuff the woman's requests, they rushed her to catch the soon-departing flight to Japan, at one point grabbing her by the wrist to lead the way, Stoeckel said.
"These people were downright cruel to her," he said. "It was a complete horror story."
It wasn't until Mitamura got back to Japan -- around midnight Hawaii time -- that she was able to call her daughter to tell her the astonishing story of what happened.
According to INS documents Stoeckel provided to me, the elder Mitamura's problem arose when she told the agency she had no residential address in Japan and was living in Hilo with her daughter -- something not permitted under the visitor visa she had.
Since her husband's death, the elder Mitamura has split her time between Hilo and Japan. She told the INS that she came to Hilo three years ago, spent five months there, returned to Japan, came back to Hilo for five more months, returned to Japan for two years, then came back to Hilo last year for several more months.
Stoeckel said her ex-mother-in-law was so dependent and sheltered by her husband that when he died she wasn't certain what to do or where to live and has since leaned heavily on her daughter.
The daughter declined to talk to me. But Stoeckel had plenty to say, and none of it reflected kindly on the INS officers at the airport.
"They treated her like an animal," he said.
An INS airport administrator didn't respond to my request for comment.
The Mitamura case reflects what some immigration lawyers say has been a growing problem of questionable and inconsistent service by Honolulu immigration officers. The problem, the lawyers say, has been especially evident since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which resulted in heightened scrutiny of foreigners entering the United States.
Ronald Oldenburg, who has practiced immigration law since 1969, said immigration officers at the airport often fail to exercise reasonable discretion when dealing with foreign travelers.
While technically it doesn't appear that the INS did anything wrong in the Mitamura case, the agency could've been more accommodating to a 69-year-old widow wanting to see her only child, Oldenburg said.
"You can go by technicalities until you're blue in the face, but the reality is she wasn't a risk," he said.
Because the INS believes that people denied entry into the country don't have the same constitutional rights as U.S. citizens, some are not permitted to call family members or even their attorneys once a problem arises at the airport, according to lawyers who represent immigrants.
If a foreign resident is not granted entry but has to wait overnight for the next flight home, he or she typically is kept at the federal detention center here, the lawyers say.
Oldenburg said Japan Airlines, the carrier that flew Mitamura to Hawaii, may have had a hand in rushing her onto the next flight back to Japan.
Air carriers that bring in foreign residents to the United States agree to return passengers to their home countries if they are deemed ineligible to enter this country by the U.S. government, according to Oldenburg. Violating that agreement results in fines.
A spokesman for Japan Airlines didn't return my phone call seeking comment.
Thanks to Stoeckel, the way Mitamura was treated at the airport has caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Ed Case, whose district includes Hilo. A Case spokesman said the congressman has inquired about the matter and is awaiting a response from the INS.
Even if the INS couldn't find a way to permit the elderly woman into the country, not allowing her to call her daughter was wrong, Oldenburg said. "There's no excuse for that."
I agree. The INS could have saved the family some grief, not to mention save the police some resources, by extending the simple courtesy of allowing the elder Mitamura to use a telephone.
Did they think she was going to call Osama bin Laden? And why prevent a 69-year-old woman from using the restroom? What rule would that violate?
Despite the questions this case and others like it raise, Oldenburg is quick to put them in perspective, saying immigration officers at the airport often handle cases reasonably and with compassion. He suspects the inconsistencies result partly because of the different experience levels of officers.
"Yes, we have our problems here," Oldenburg said. "But generally speaking, we're far better off than most other airports in the country. Compared with New York or L.A. or Miami, Hawaii looks like heaven."
On Sept. 4, Hawaii must have looked like something else to Yoshiko Mitamura.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Star-Bulletin columnist Rob Perez writes on issues
and events affecting Hawaii. Fax 529-4750, or write to
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. He can also be reached
by e-mail at: rperez@starbulletin.com.
