Japan’s New Immigration Measures Further Alienate Foreign Residents

On November 20, 2007, new immigration measures came into force in Japan as the result of an amendment to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, further eroding the civil liberties of Japan’s foreign residents and receiving widespread condemnation from the international community and human rights organizations.

The new law requires all non-Japanese aged over 16, with the exception of diplomats, U.S. soldiers and “special permanent residents” (i.e. third generation Korean and Chinese), to be fingerprinted, photographed and questioned every time they enter Japan. Those refusing to submit to the new procedures will be deported after forcibly being fingerprinted and made to undergo a physical examination.

Amnesty International Japan has called the new measures an abuse of human rights and an act of discrimination towards non-Japanese, while for many non-Japanese the measures have once again highlighted increasing anti-foreigner sentiment in Japan, coming just months after the August publication of a Cabinet poll, the “Public Survey on the Defense of Human Rights,” in which 40.7% of respondents to the question “Should foreigners have the same human rights protections as Japanese?” said “no.”

So why does Japan claim it needs these new measures? The answer to that seems to depend on who Japan’s government is trying to convince. At home, the government has been sending mixed messages, on the one hand citing the threat of terrorism while on the other hand using a supposed foreign crime wave much trumpeted by Japan’s largely right-wing media and frequently targeted by the National Police Agency (NPA) as its justification.

Overseas, Japan is justifying becoming only the second country after the U.S. to adopt biometric checks for incoming travelers – and the only country to target foreign residents – solely by playing the “war on terror” card, with the Ministry of Justice’s (MOJ) Immigration Bureau explaining to visitors from overseas that the new measures will allow them “to identify persons considered to pose security risks, such as terrorists and persons traveling with passports that are not their own.”

To hammer home its foreign crime message, the MOJ has been splashing out on PR, in one instance employing ex-Yomiuri Giants pitcher and current TV “talento” MIYAMOTO Kazutomo to pose for the cameras at Narita Airport having his fingerprints taken (even though as a Japanese he will not be subjected to fingerprinting) to promote the new measures.

Speaking on the government’s behalf, and echoing the editorial opinions of the Yomiuri Shimbun and other influential media since the amendment came into effect, Miyamoto gave his approval to the new measures by saying “it’d be best if we could cut the amount of crime foreigners are committing and make Japan a safer place.” Both Miyamoto and the government would benefit from some hard facts.

While a quick glance at NPA statistics (NPA 2005 Crime Report) shows an increase from 32,000 to 48,000 in the raw number of crimes committed by non-Japanese from 1997 to 2004, such figures alone do not paint an accurate picture of foreign crime in Japan. As a May 2007 article in Kansai Time Out (KTO) reported, such figures fail to show an increase of approximately 500,000 foreign residents over the same period while also failing to mention that proportionally the foreign crime rate is falling.

The KTO article, which based its findings on data published by the NPA, MOJ and Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), reported the crime rate among Japanese as being 1,776 per 100,000 compared to 597 per 100,000 for foreign nationals living in and visiting Japan in 2005, a number that would drop to just 463 if visa violations were discounted.

Despite statistics showing Japanese have more to fear from themselves than from outsiders, inaccurate reporting by the Japanese media and false campaigning by the NPA have lead many Japanese to believe the opposite to be true, paving the way for their acceptance of a system that otherwise would be unlikely to be accepted and giving many foreign residents the feeling that they are once again being made scapegoats for political gain.

With regard to the threat of terrorism, as a member of “the coalition of the willing” Japan’s staunch support of the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has, some argue, created the potential for reprisal terror attacks. However, it is debatable whether the new immigration measures will be effective in preventing any such attack, especially as it has been reported by Japan Inc. that the collected data will take up to 24 hours to be processed and compared to data on known or suspected terrorists, giving even the most incompetent of terrorists enough time to hit Tokyo and leave the country before being flagged as a threat to national security.

The government’s approach in targeting only non-Japanese also seems to suggest Japan faces no threat of terror from within, a notion history disproves given that Japan has only ever been the victim of acts of terrorism committed by its own people, such as Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995. If the government seriously believes infringing on the human rights of residents will help prevent terrorism, then surely the new measures should target Japanese too.

Instead, they have opted for an ill-thought out measure that gives the pretense of increasing security by tackling a perceived foreign threat and that is unlikely to draw criticism from the electorate. Ultimately it will only further damage Japan’s international reputation and do little to make the country safer.

Text: Rob GOSS

Back to List Page