Determined action keeps Japanese volunteer in US.

On Super Bowl Sunday morning Dan McFadden, director of Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS), got a call from immigration at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Shoko Murakami, the BVS volunteer featured on the cover of the January/February issue of the Church of the Brethren magazine "Messenger," was being refused re-entry following a two-week visit home to Japan. She would be deported by the next available flight.

Immigration claimed that Murakami's $70 monthly stipend was income not allowed by her visa, although it was the type of visa that other BVS volunteers use every year. McFadden called Brethren House in Washington, D.C., where Murakami lived with ten other volunteers, to let them know she would not be arriving. Amy Adkins, Sarah Farahat, and others would not take no for an answer, and began making phone calls. They called Phil Jones, Brethren Witness/Washington Office director, who called Stan Noffsinger, Church of the Brethren general secretary, who called Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

Jones called David Price, congressman from North Carolina; Edgar contacted Rush Holt, congressman from New Jersey; and phone calls were made to the immigration office. Farahat also found numbers for the Japanese embassy and the Department of Homeland Security in Texas. Farahat got through to Murakami, and learned she was being held in a small cell without pencils or paper, and was not allowed to make calls.

That night, Murakami's case was re-examined and she was given a temporary two-week stay, during which Annual Conference moderator-elect Jim Hardenbrook and his congressman from Idaho, Butch Otter, got involved as well. By 2 a.m., an exhausted Murakami arrived at Reagan Airport to be greeted by Jones and BVS friends.

As Murakami went to her next meeting with immigration, McFadden hoped she would be allowed to stay five months to finish her BVS term. At the meeting Murakami learned that the immigration officer had visited the BVS website, and was impressed. While he didn't mention the phone calls, he acknowledged that immigration had acted in error. Instead of giving her the five months, he gave her a full year.

Expressing thanks to all who intervened on Murakami's behalf, McFadden said, "I was humbled by the strength of our volunteers and by the quick action of church leaders and political representatives. I was humbled by their support of Shoko, of BVS, of the work of the church."

It took Murakami about a month to settle back in to the US, she said. "Now I see this experience as positive," she said. "It could have happened to anybody. I was a fortunate one even if I were deported. I had a place to return to in my home country. Some people don't."

Murakami learned about BVS through the World Friendship Center (WFC) in Hiroshima, to which BVS has provided volunteer hosts for decades. She first traveled to the US in 1997 with hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. "I joined BVS to be part of my predecessors' dream of peace," said Murakami, who is working at the Center for Economic Justice. "I am so grateful that I can complete my volunteer service. I realize that it is the time we need to keep building the bridges of international understanding and friendship, so we don't repeat the mistake again that we learned from history."

Source: Newsline 4/16/2004 top