On May 18, 2006, a little discussed and little debated law passed the Diet.
With changes modeled on the “U.S. Visit” system set up in 2003, the Immigration Control Law was amended to require that, from November 2007, all foreigners (except “special” permanent residents) be photographed and fingerprinted upon entering the country.
The law has sparked concern among the international community in Japan, as well as with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which believes the amendments to the law are unconstitutional.
While the Justice Ministry does appear to be adopting a flexible, open approach to the terms of implementation, some government officials have described the law as “dumb” and “poorly thought-out.”
Others admit they’ve never even heard of it.
Immigration
Revised ordinance bars gangs from sponsoring foreign entertainers
An amended government ordinance entered force Thursday, banning companies linked to organized crime syndicates from sponsoring foreign singers and dancers entering Japan on entertainment visas.
The updated Justice Ministry ordinance is aimed at tackling human trafficking as foreign women who have entered Japan as entertainers have often been forced to work for low wages as hostesses in bars or nightclubs or to engage in prostitution.
Registered foreigners top 2 million
The number of registered foreign residents in Japan at the end of 2005 totaled roughly 2,011,500, surpassing the 2 million mark for the first time ever, the Justice Ministry announced Friday.
The figure was up 1.9 percent from a year ago and foreign nationals now account for 1.57 percent of the total population.
Japan set to accept more skilled foreign professionals
Japan is set to accept more foreign professionals by introducing more flexible immigration policies, the government said Thursday in line with a set of policy targets adopted by a government panel and aimed at securing leadership in international society.
In an attempt to attract more human resources with highly advanced knowledge and techniques from abroad, the government will extend the legal limit on the length of stay for them to five years from the current three years on a nationwide basis, the Cabinet Office said.
U.N. rapporteur raps Japan’s law on fingerprinting foreigners
A special U.N. rapporteur on racism on Thursday criticized Japan’s new immigration legislation on fingerprinting and photographing all foreign visitors as a process of treating foreigners like criminals.
Doudou Diene, on his last day of a six-day visit to Japan to conduct a follow-up of his report on racism, said at a press conference in Tokyo the immigration bill that just passed the Diet on Wednesday “illustrates something I have been denouncing in my reports for four years. It is the fact that, especially since Sept 11, there has been a process of criminalization of foreigners” all over the world, he added.
Diet passes bill to take foreigners’ prints, pics
Despite strong criticism from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and human rights organizations, the bill cleared the House of Councilors with a majority vote by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito.
With the revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law, an estimated 6 million to 7 million foreigners entering Japan every year will be obliged to have their fingerprints and photographs taken, along with other personal identification information.
Japan rethinks immigration policy
“Whether we like it or not, there are many foreigners who want to come to Japan. We must think about how we can accept those who want to work or settle in Japanese society, without friction,” Koizumi told members of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, according to the publicized minutes.
“If we accept foreigners beyond a certain scale…there must be friction. In that case, social costs would be tremendous,” Koizumi continued. “We must think how to improve the environment and education system in order to let foreigners work comfortably as a steady labor power.”
Wave of retiring workers could force big changes
All over Japan, companies are bracing for a demographic wave that will wash away many of their most experienced employees. The Japanese call it their “2007 problem.” Beginning next year, members of what Japan considers its baby boom generation will start hitting 60 and dropping out of the workforce. Some might postpone retirement, but they can’t work forever. Plunging birth rates mean there won’t be nearly enough young people to replace them.
Japan is just beginning to wrestle with a more controversial solution to the labor shortage: opening the floodgates to immigration.
Foreign workers account for just 1% of Japan’s labor force, vs. about 15% in the USA. Japan relaxes visa requirements for engineers and other specialized workers. But it is reluctant to let less-skilled workers into the country, limiting them to two- or three-year “training” contracts if it admits them at all.
“Sooner or later, we will need more people,” says Hidenori Sakanaka, retired head of the national immigration bureau office in Tokyo. “This is the time to create a new immigration policy.”
Sakanaka, the former immigration official, says Japanese bureaucrats are in denial. After retiring from his government job, he set up the Japan Immigration Policy Institute to advocate more liberal policies. He made what he admits is a utopian proposal: Admit 20 million foreigners in the next 50 years, up from less than 2 million now.
“Look at the speed of the decline in population. It’s unbelievable. Thirty million people will disappear,” he says. “There are two ways to go: Shrunken Japan ? and learning to live with it; and Big Japan ? we accept foreigners.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-05-02-japan-econ-usat_x.htm
http://www.ncpa.org/newdpd/dpdarticle.php?article_id=3292
Immigration reform, political protests mark world May Day
About 300,000 people across Japan took part in various May Day events calling for better working conditions.
In Tokyo, 44,000 people gathered in a park before marching through the city center, waving colorful banners to protest what they see as growing social inequalities between the rich and poor.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/may/02/yehey/world/
20060502wor1.html
The Rising Sun slowly sets
Unfortunately, Japan is notoriously closed to foreigners, mainly because opinion polls show that most Japanese associate foreigners with crime. As of 2003, there were only 1.9 million registered foreign residents in Japan, equivalent to only 1.5% of the population. The real number of foreigners is even lower, considering that 600,000 are ethnic Koreans mostly born and raised in Japan and who speak only Japanese, and that most of the 270,000 registered Brazilians and 54,000 Peruvians are ethnic Japanese from South America who have returned to Japan.