A committee in Japan’s lower house gives first approval to tightening the country’s strict immigration law

Less than 1 percent of asylum seekers were approved to stay in the country in 2021

28 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

A committee of Japan’s House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan’s Diet (or Parliament), has given first approval to an amendment that will toughen the country’s immigration law, one of the toughest in the world, by increasing the deportation possibilities for aliens applying for refugee status.

The House Judicial Affairs Committee has welcomed the amendment with the backing of the government party, the Liberal Democratic Party, its historic coalition partner, Komeito, and two conservative opposition parties, the Innovation Party. and the Democratic Party for the People.

This amendment, which contemplates the possibility that foreigners who request refugee status may be deported after the third request, has met with the rejection of the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, and the Communist Party.

Current law prevents anyone applying for refugee status from being deported as long as their petition is being processed, regardless of the number of times they have filed it.

In any case, the amendment leaves the door open for deportation on the third request to be suspended if it is clear that the affected applicants have “compelling reasons” to insist. The Government defends that the change in the law has to do with requests that are clearly aimed at prolonging the stay in the country without a justified reason.

In addition, the amendment will also allow foreigners already in the process of expulsion to live outside detention centers –to do so instead in residences for groups or people authorized by the Government– while their departure from the country is pending. , with the case of Wishma Sandamali in mind, a Sri Lankan woman who died in 2021 in a Nagoya detention center after seeing all her requests for medical care rejected.

The modification, however, does rule out the opposition proposal to establish a third body that is in charge of supervising a process inserted within one of the strictest asylum policies in the world: only 74 people received refugee status in 2021 (less of 1 by the way), according to the official Japanese news agency Kyodo, in what was in any case a maximum record for the country.

The proposal, anticipates the Japanese public chain, will be approved by the entire House of Representatives at the beginning of next month before going to the upper house.

It should be recalled that a recent Amnesty International report on the situation in detention centers in Japan documented various human rights violations, including arbitrary and indefinite detention, ill-treatment by immigration officers, including beatings, and the use of solitary confinement, and inadequate medical care, according to interviews with the detainees themselves.