New law would tighten up oversight of foreigners
Human rights groups complain that because the justice minister can access foreign residents’ personal information with residence (“zairyu”) card numbers, which are to be given to every documented foreigner, it is an infringement of privacy. [Immigration Bureau General Affairs Division official Kazuyuki] Motohari defended the bureau by saying, “It is not unusual for us to hold information that helps us confirm the identify of foreign residents.”
The bills stipulate that the justice minister must not use residents’ personal information for purposes other than “managing” foreign residents and must handle the information in a way that does not violate privacy.
He also said it is essential to let foreigners know the rule changes, including advantages such as extending visa duration from three to five years and ending the requirement to obtain a re-entry permit if one returns to Japan within a year.
“It will undoubtedly be more convenient for legal residents,” he said.
The bureau’s statistics show 1.41 million foreign residents re-entered Japan within a year in 2007, accounting for 98.7 percent of the 1.43 million who left Japan after obtaining a re-entry permit.
The Immigration Bureau is considering enabling foreign residents to report changes in workplace and apply for renewal of residence cards via mail or the Internet instead of requiring them to go to local immigration offices, he said.
Currently, renewing alien registration cards, which are to be replaced by zairyu cards, and reporting changes in personal information can be done at municipal offices, more of which exist than immigration offices.
For address changes, residents can go to municipal offices even under the new system. For changes in name, gender and nationality, they will have to go to immigration offices instead of municipal offices, but such changes rarely occur.
Immigration
Japan To Introduce ‘Point System’ To Attract Foreigners
The Japanese government plans to introduce a ”point system” to give preferential treatment such as residency permit extensions to foreigners with advanced expertise, Kyodo news reported quoting government sources as saying on Sunday.
The government plans to evaluate foreigners by awarding points for their qualifications, working careers, research achievements and other qualities and to give preferential treatment when their points exceed a certain level, the sources said.
The new system will form part of a reform of the residency permit system amid intensified international competition for engineers and other experts with advanced expertise.
A Justice Ministry panel will discuss the plan soon to begin mapping out the new system.
The government is expected to study simplifying procedures for residency permits and reentry, extending the maximum duration of residency permits from three years at present and shortening the period of residency required before securing the right to permanent residency from 10 years in principle.
The ministry will decide on the jobs to be included under the new system in consultation with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and other ministries and agencies.
A government panel compiled a report last month that included a study on the introduction of the new system.
Similar point systems have been introduced in Britain and Canada. In Britain, the system is applied to scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers and teachers, who can obtain the right of permanent residence in five years if they are recognised as experts with advanced expertise.
Lower House passes bill revising foreign residency rules
The Lower House passed bills Friday making it easier for the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau to keep tabs on foreigners who have overstayed their visas as well as others residing legally in the country.
A new form of identification, called a “zairyu” (residence) card, will replace alien registration cards, with the information on them kept by the Justice Ministry.
Foreign residents will be listed on the Juki Net resident registry network, a computer network linking municipalities that contains demographic information of Japanese residents.
Visas, typically good for three years, will be extended to five. Also, foreign residents will no longer be required to obtain re-entry permits if they return to Japan within a year.
On the other hand, the punishments for failing to report one’s address and other personal information will become harsher. In order to curb fake marriages, the bills give the justice minister the authority to revoke the spousal visas of those who fail to conduct “activities spouses normally do” for six months. Special consideration would be given to spouses who live separately because of mitigating circumstances, including abuse.
Immigration revision set to be passed
Compromise paves way for state-issued foreigner cards
The ruling and opposition camps have revised a contentious set of immigration bills in a way that increases government scrutiny of both legal and illegal foreign residents while extending additional conveniences, according to a draft obtained Thursday by The Japan Times.
Legislators from the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc and the Democratic Party of Japan hammered out the bills to reach a balance on how the estimated 110,000 undocumented foreigners living in Japan should be tracked. Currently, municipalities issue alien registration cards and provide public services to foreigners, even if they know they are overstaying their visas.
The revised bills, expected to be passed Friday by the Lower House, will abolish the Alien Registration Act and revise the immigration control and resident registration laws with sweeping changes that put information on foreign residents completely in the hands of the central government.
Foreigners stage a sit-in outside Diet to protest immigration bills
About 20 foreign workers [including members of NUGW Tokyo Nambu] and their supporters staged a sit-in Tuesday in front of the Diet to demand that bills to revise the immigration law be scrapped.
The bills, now before the Lower House Judicial Affairs Committee, would put a greater burden on foreign workers and violate their rights, participants at the sit-in argued.
“The government says the immigration law revision would make administrative procedures more convenient for foreigners living in Japan legally, but the realities would be vice versa,” Catherine Campbell said in Japanese.
The revision would impose a fine of up to ¥200,000 on people who fail to notify the government of a change in address within 14 days, and their residency status could be revoked if they fail to report the change within 90 days.
Kunio Ozwaldo Hiramoto, 46, a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian from Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, said the purpose of the revision is to increase control over foreign workers. “I want the Japanese government to stop xenophobia and treat foreigners warmly,” he said.
The issue that dares not speak its name
In Japanese, “racial discrimination” is jinshu sabetsu. That is the established term used in official translations of international treaties (such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, or CERD) that Japan has signed up to.
However, the Japanese media won’t couch the discussion in these terms. This was visible during the nationwide debate generated by the Otaru onsen case (1999-2005), where public bathhouses refused entry to customers because they didn’t “look Japanese.” If you read the oodles of non-tabloid articles on this case, you’ll see the debate was conducted in milder, misleading language.
For example, it was rendered in terms of gaikokujin sabetsu (discrimination against foreigners). But that’s not the same thing. The people being discriminated against were not all foreign (ahem).
Or else it was depicted as gaiken sabetsu (discrimination by physical appearance). But that’s not “race,” either. Nor is “physical appearance” specifically covered by the CERD.
This term particularly derails the debate. It actually generates sympathy for people afraid of how others look.
Immigration bills threaten rights of foreigners: critics
Representatives of municipalities and human rights groups voiced their opposition Thursday to government-sponsored immigration bills they say will lead to violations of foreigners’ rights and excessive control over them.
The proposed bills would issue new “zairyu” (residency) cards to replace their alien registration cards. Failure to carry the cards or report any changes in status could lead to a fine of up to ¥200,000, and failure to comply within three months could lead to one’s visa being canceled.
Alien registration is currently handled by local ward offices, but the new bills would hand responsibility for that task — and any records collected — to the Justice Ministry.
Hiroko Uehara, the former mayor of the city of Kunitachi in western Tokyo, refused to connect the municipality’s resident registry network to the nationwide Juki Net network in 2002 to protect residents’ privacy. She warned that transferring the management of alien registration from municipalities to immigration offices would reduce the quality of service for foreign residents.
“Municipalities have so far made an effort to provide, at their own discretion, services to foreign residents,” Uehara told a gathering in Tokyo. “But if immigration takes control of registration, all that effort will be lost,” she said.
Proposed foreigner card protested
Opponents of change to immigration law fear loss of privacy, other human rights violations
More than 200 people [including former members of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu] rallied in Tokyo’s Shinbashi district Sunday to protest government-sponsored immigration bills they claim would violate the privacy of foreign residents and strengthen government control over them.
The protesters say the proposed system would allow the government to punish non-Japanese who fail to properly report their personal information, and could even make it possible for immigration authorities to arbitrarily revoke their visas.
IC you: bugging the alien
New gaijin cards could allow police to remotely track foreigners
When the Japanese government first issued alien registration cards (aka gaijin cards) in 1952, it had one basic aim in mind: to track “foreigners” (at that time, mostly Korean and Taiwanese stripped of Japanese colonial citizenship) who decided to stay in postwar Japan.
Gaijin cards put foreigners in their place: Registry is from age 16, so from a young age they were psychologically alienated from the rest of Japanese society. So what if they were born and acculturated here over many generations? Still foreigners, full stop.
Even today, when emigrant non-Japanese far outnumber the native-born, the government tends to see them all less as residents, more as something untrustworthy to police and control. Noncitizens are not properly listed on residency registries. Moreover, only foreigners must carry personal information (name and address, personal particulars, duration of visa status, photo, and — for a time — fingerprints) at all times. Gaijin cards must also be available for public inspection under threat of arrest, one year in jail and ¥200,000 in fines.
However, the Diet is considering a bill abolishing those gaijin cards.
Sounds great at first: Under the proposed revisions, non-Japanese would be registered properly with residency certificates (juminhyo). Maximum visa durations would increase from three years to five. ID cards would be revamped. Drafters claim this will “protect” (hogo) foreigners, making their access to social services more “convenient.”
However, read the fine print. The government is in fact creating a system to police foreigners more tightly than ever.
Exploited workers lose $20B a year
The exploitation of workers is a huge business worldwide.
People forced to work without pay collectively lose more than $20 billion a year in earnings, according to a report from the United Nations International Labour Organization released Tuesday.
Global profits from human trafficking and forced labor have reached $36 billion, according to the United Nations, and that sum is climbing.
“Forced labor is the antithesis of decent work,” ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said in a statement as the report became public. “It causes untold human suffering and steals from its victims.”
“It is the vulnerable who suffer the most” in times of economic crisis like the present, the report says.