Photo/Illutration Protesters gather outside the Diet on April 28 to voice their opposition to a bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. (Ari Hirayama)

A bill to revise the refugee recognition law that passed a Lower House committee on April 28 almost mirrors proposed legislation scrapped two years ago due to criticism both within Japan and overseas.

The international community has long castigated Japan for its reluctance to accept more refugees beyond the roughly 1 percent of all applications submitted.

Minor tinkering by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party led to its members in the Lower House Judicial Affairs Committee voting for the bill along with those of junior coalition partner Komeito as well as the opposition parties Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and the Democratic Party for the People.

The bill will likely be voted on in the entire Lower House after the Golden Week of national holidays in early May.

No longer included in the legislation is any mention of an independent organ to assess applications for refugee status, and it remains unclear what the status will be of children of foreign nationals remaining illegally in Japan.

The ruling coalition at one time considered mentioning a third-party organ in response to a demand for such an entity by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. Discussions between the ruling coalition and opposition parties also considered giving special consideration to the interests of children of foreign overstayers.

But with the CDP deciding to vote against the bill in committee, all wording that it proposed was deleted from the legislation, meaning no discussion will likely be held soon on establishing an independent organ to assess refugee applications. If the bill passes into law, there is also the possibility that nothing will be done about granting special residence status to children of foreign overstayers.

The bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law will allow immigration authorities to deport those seeking refugee status after two rejections of their applications.

Currently, deportation orders are suspended if applications for refugee status are pending.

That framework is basically unchanged from the proposal submitted to the Diet two years ago that had to be abandoned due to a furor at home and abroad.

Immigration authorities wanted to be in the position of being able to more quickly deport any foreign nationals deemed to be abusing the refugee application process to prolong their stay in Japan. As a result, some people spend years in detention for the relatively minor offense of overstaying their visa.

As of the end of 2022, authorities said 4,233 foreign nationals were refusing to comply with deportation orders.

To eliminate prolonged detention periods, the bill would allow foreign overstayers to remain under the supervision of designated custodians during procedures leading to deportation.

Authorities will decide whether individuals will be detained at a state facility or placed under custodian oversight on a case-by-case basis by considering whether they might flee, along with other factors.

Cases involving incarceration will be reviewed every three months to assess whether custodian oversight would be more appropriate.

A new system will also be set up to provide protection for people fleeing from conflicts in their home countries, such as Ukraine.

Around 300 people gathered outside the Diet on April 28 to protest the proposed legislation.

Human rights groups and lawyers submitted a petition with about 190,000 signatures on April 26 to the Immigration Services Agency demanding the bill be scrapped.

(This article was written by Kosuke Tauchi, Ari Hirayama and Shingo Tsuru.)

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