A Japanese prefecture with the distinction of leading the nation in illegal worker arrests for three years running has decided that what it really needs is a financial incentive for neighbors to snitch on each other.
Ibaraki’s new tip-off bounty system, announced on February 18th, would pay informants tens of thousands of yen if their tip leads to a police crackdown. Online, the reaction has been…well, about what you’d expect.
Japan’s illegal worker capital wants to clean house
Ibaraki Governor Oikawa Kazuhiko made the announcement as part of the prefecture’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal.
According to Japan’s Immigration Services Agency, Ibaraki recorded 3,452 illegal worker arrests in 2024, the highest in the country, for the third consecutive year. At his February 18th press conference, Oikawa said the prefecture needed “fundamental countermeasures to address the problem of illegal employment, which is among the worst in the country.”
The scheme itself isn’t entirely without precedent at the national level. Japan’s Immigration Control Act, specifically Article 66, has allowed the national government’s Immigration Services Agency to pay rewards of up to ¥50,000 to informants since 1951. The tipster only gets paid when the person they reported receives a deportation order.
Ibaraki’s plan is essentially that same framework, turbocharged and handed down to the prefectural level. It would be the first such program run by any of Japan’s 47 prefectures.
The governor was at pains to insist the scheme wouldn’t tar law-abiding foreign residents with the same brush. “This will absolutely not become a situation where even foreigners working honestly are made to feel anxious,” he told reporters.
“Foreigner hunting” fears meet law-and-order cheers
Not everyone is taking the governor at his word. The announcement came amid a political climate in which anti-foreigner rhetoric has grown louder on social media and at the ballot box. The movement, which began thanks to far-right parties such as Sanseitō, has only accelerated under new Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae.
Critics wasted no time pointing out the obvious risks of deputizing the general public as paid informants. “This is basically handing content to attention-seeking influencers,” one commenter wrote. “There will definitely be people playing ‘foreigner hunting’ like it’s a game.”
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Others worried about the incentive structure itself: “People looking for easy money will flood the system with false reports. That just fans the flames of hate further,” said one social media poster. “It’s just foolish.”
The concern about fabricated reports isn’t trivial. A bounty system that rewards tips regardless of their accuracy – and only pays out on successful prosecutions – could still generate a wave of harassment toward legal residents who simply look foreign, long before any investigation clears them.
Ibaraki has not yet disclosed the exact reward amount, the verification process for tips, or what safeguards, if any, will be in place to prevent abuse. The program is scheduled to launch at the start of the new fiscal year. How it plays out could determine whether other prefectures follow suit – or quietly decide the idea was never worth the trouble
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Sources
.「当然の措置」「外国人狩りが起きる」茨城県が実施の不法就労の情報提供者への“報奨金付き通報制度”にネット賛否. LiveDoor News
