It’s official. From 2027, forgetting to pay taxes or carry your residence card can cost you your permanent residency in Japan. Legal revisions last week put foreign nationals living long-term in Japan on edge. Ironically, Japan also paraded new initiatives to become the go-to place for foreigners looking to work abroad.
Stay or go?
On June 14th, Japan’s parliament enacted revised immigration laws. The revisions give the government broader ground to strip foreigners of permanent residency. The same legislation replaces the current technical intern system. The new training program is designed to reduce abuse and encourage foreign nationals to stay longer.
Japan grants permanent residency to foreign nationals who have lived in Japan for over 10 years. Foreign spouses of Japanese nationals and foreign nationals who have acquired “advanced skills and knowledge” are also eligible. Highly-compensated workers and people with advanced education can earn PR status in as little as a year.
26% of foreign nationals living in Japan have permanent residency. The largest demographic of permanent residents is Chinese (330,000), followed by Filipino (130,000), Brazilian (110,000), and Korean (70,000) nationals.
Boosting workers, booting residents
A majority of the Diet approved changes to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act at the Upper House plenary session on Friday. The Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, and the Japan Innovation Party supported the bill. The Constitutional Democratic Party, Japanese Communist Party, and other opposition parties voted against it.
The revisions entail expanding revocation criteria for permanent residency beyond a one-year prison sentence. At the same time, the government sees the new trainee program as a potential boost to immigration.
Under the new provisions, residents can lose their PR status due to:
- Intentional failure to pay taxes and social security contributions
- Violation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act
- A prison sentence for certain crimes such as breaking and entering, assault, or theft
The law is written in such a way, however, that it gives immigration officials wide discretion. That means that being unable to pay taxes (e.g., due to an illness) or even forgetting to carry one’s residence card with them at all times could be grounds for losing PR status.
Outcry over revoking status
Permanent residents, lawyers, NPOs, and opposition lawmakers have opposed the new revocation criteria.
Groups of pro-Seoul Korean and Chinese residents in Japan held protests and issued statements ahead of Friday’s vote. They called the criteria “a threat to the lives and human rights of permanent residents” and “severe discrimination.”
“The government can collect overdue taxes and foreclose on them in the same manner as Japanese nationals. Taking away residency status is an excessive and discriminatory sanction,” lawyer Ibusuki Shoichi told reporters.
Concerns are mounting against the criteria’s unforgiving nature. Unintentional failure to pay taxes and carry resident permits are also substantial causes for revocation.
“Losing my permanent residency over forgetting to put my residence card in my wallet would be too harsh,” said Solana Mitsu, 44, who has lived in Japan for 18 years.
Taiwan-born Akutagawa Prize-winning novelist Li Kotomi, 34, and permanent residents from 6 countries including the US, Brazil, Myanmar, and Korea attended a meeting in Parliament on June 10th, pleading with the government to scrap revisions.
“We live the same life and pay the same taxes as Japanese people. I feel like the Japanese government has told us that we are second-class citizens and that it can take our lives away from us at any time,” Li said.
New name, not much better program
Japan’s new trainee program is stirring just as much controversy as the legal revisions laid in place for it to commence.
Replacing the technical intern training program that began in 1993, the new system will allow trainees unprecedented mobility within the same industry for 3 years. After up to 2 years, trainees will be able to change jobs. Upon completing the program, foreign nationals can obtain a five-year “specified skilled worker No.1 visa.”
No longer bound to one workplace, trainees who earn illegally low wages or are subject to violence and harassment can now seek out safer opportunities––on paper. Experts say they are not optimistic that the revisions will change much.
“There’s probably no company that will accept an incoming trainee who only has one year left,” Shoichi said. “The government just changed the program’s name and made it just to dodge criticism for running a ‘slave system.'”
Authorities, opting to substitute what critics dub ‘cheap labor’ with ‘human resources,’ cannot deny that Japan has very few options but to rely on immigrants to plug its labor shortage created by the country’s demographic crisis.
Kishida has repeatedly declared to make Japan “the country foreign talent chooses.”
Sou Tokushin, 84, a Yokohama resident of Chinese descent, who has spoken to Parliament in protest of recent revisions said “The government is putting so much weight on the ‘resources’ part of ‘human resources’ that it is forgetting the ‘human.'”
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