The Ministry of the Interior yesterday promised three Japanese brothers facing deportation help in obtaining Taiwanese citizenship.
Tsutomu, Tetsu and Morio Oura, aged 28, 26 and 24, are Japanese citizens who were born and raised in Taiwan and do not speak Japanese. Their mother is Taiwanese.
The brothers' Taiwanese visas are set to expire in two days, two months and four months, respectively.
They are in limbo because they are technically "foreigners" in Taiwan and hold only resident status, while the Japanese government, which does not recognize Taiwan, refuses to cancel their Japanese citizenship until they have secured nationality "from any country."
Taiwan's government, however, requires foreigners to first relinquish their original nationality before they can apply for Taiwanese citizenship.
To resolve the problem, Vice Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (
Lee said that the three brothers can apply for Taiwanese citizenship after they present documents from the Japanese government proving that their efforts to relinquish Japanese citizenship have been rejected.
Their application for Taiwanese citizenship could be approved within a week, Lee added.
Lee promised to help after they appeared at a press conference yesterday pleading for help from the government to allow them to stay in the southern city of Kaohsiung, where they have been living since their birth.
Their mother said it is ridiculous that "real Taiwanese" like her sons would soon be deported simply because they are Japanese passport holders.
In their written appeal to the foreign affairs ministry, they said they are "hillbillies" who knew nothing about legal formalities, which "resulted in what they are today," but they said they are truly sincere in their desire to become Taiwanese citizens.
The brothers are children of Toyokatzu Oura, a Japanese man born in Taiwan some 47 years ago to Yudaka Oura and his Taiwanese wife.
The Oura brothers have recently been told that they have two options available if they are to remain in Taiwan. First, they could marry Taiwanese women, and second, they could be employed as "specialists" under sponsorship by a Taiwanese company or an organization.
Neither of the two options, however, was applicable to the brothers because they cannot "jump" into a marriage in such a short period of time, and secondly, they don't have the education to be hired as "specialists."
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