Immigration Laws: June, 2000 - Number #15

The number of registered foreign residents in Japan for more than 90 days hit a record 1.6 million at the end of 1999, accounting for 1.2 percent of Japan's total population. The number of foreigners in Japan was 1.1 million in 1990. There were 636,000 Koreans in 1999, 41 percent of all foreigners, followed by 294,000 Chinese, 19 percent; and 224,000 Brazilians, 14 percent.

Some 3,000 foreign students who completed their studies in Japan in 1999 were hired by Japanese companies in Japan; 61 percent were Chinese. The Japanese Justice Ministry earlier in 2000 issued a statement that read: "In order to encourage engineers and technicians, [we] will review the criteria and qualifications required on visa applications, such as the necessary years of experience and job categories."

The Ministry recently expanded the foreign trainee program from manufacturing and construction to agriculture, and is considering adding nursing to the occupations in which foreigners can come to Japan for work-and-learning.

Some 55,167 foreigners were deported from Japan in 1999, including 46,258 who were unlawfully employed — the number of foreigners removed from Japan was less than 50,000 in 1997 and 1998. Foreigners deported from Japan cannot re-enter for at least five years.

Some 200 unauthorized foreigners and their Japanese supporters marched in Tokyo on May 1, 2000 in support of amnesty. In September 1999, 21 visa overstayers turned themselves in at the Tokyo Immigration Bureau and asked for asylum; 16 received the right to live indefinitely in Japan.

Demography. Japan has 126 million residents and the population is projected to fall to 105 million by 2050 if the birth rate remains at 1.4 children per woman. The UN projected that, to keep the working age population at 87 million through 2050, Japan would have to accept 609,000 immigrants a year, which would make 30 percent of Japan's residents immigrants or their descendents in 2050.

In 1986, then-prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone reportedly told colleagues that immigration would weaken Japan. He said that America's "intellectual level" was beneath Japan's because of "people like blacks, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans." In January 2000, former prime minister Keizo Obuchi's Commission on Japan's Goals in the 21st Century endorsed creating "an explicit immigration and permanent residency system."

The Bandai Corporation, the big Japanese toy maker that makes Power Rangers, is offering one million yen, $10,000, to any of its 950 employees who has a second child. The government provides subsidies of $50 a month for each of the first two children until age six, and then $100 a month for a third child for salaried parents with incomes under $67,000. Japan's birthrate is the lowest in the G7 group of major industrial nations.

Crime. Foreigners were accused of a record 34,398 crimes in 1999; some 13,436 foreigners were arrested. Most are deported to their countries of origin, sometimes without serving any of their sentence in Japan. Japanese experts note that foreigners convicted of crimes in Japan who are deported are often released in their countries of origin, while those who are found innocent are detained in Japan for violating immigration laws.

According to the Justice Ministry, there are contradictions between the Criminal Procedure Law and the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law which results in prosecutors giving up appeals because foreign suspects sentenced to probation are deported. This means that foreigners are less often subject to a prosecutor's appeal than a Japanese citizen who commits a crime.

"In a case like this, it is the common feeling of the international community that a suspect should first be deported to his home country," Toyo Atsumi, professor of law at Chuo University, said. "Then the governments of Japan and that country should discuss the treatment of that suspect based on a bilateral judicial cooperation treaty. However, the suspect who was acquitted has to be detained since Japan does not have such a treaty with countries other than the United States.."

The Japanese economy shrank by 2.5 percent in 1998, and is expected to expand by one percent in 1999 and 2000. The 126 million Japanese have a per capita GDP of $24,500.

"Record 1.55 million foreign residents in Japan in 1999," Kyodo, May 30, 2000.
Masayoshi Kanabayashi, "More Japanese Are Advocating Opening the Doors to Foreigners," Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2000.