Category: Immigration

The Democratic Party of Japan may submit a bill during the current extraordinary Diet session that would grant permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local-level elections, DPJ Diet affairs chief Kenji Yamaoka told reporters Friday, noting the session may also have to be extended. His comments come a day after Prime Minister Yukio…

[The recently released Harrison Ford film] “Crossing Over” is made up of a series of small but interconnected human dramas. It focuses on what the Japanese call ninj?, meaning “heart” or “humanity.” This is clear from the accompanying Japanese pamphlet, which proclaims, “Even (immigration) inspectors have ninj?.” In recent years, this “foreign crime” (gaikokujin hanzai)…

The government might draft legislation next year to give permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local-level elections, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Thursday. “We are not yet in a situation where a bill has been prepared, and therefore it would be fairly difficult in the next Diet session,” Hatoyama told reporters Thursday, referring…

Technical colleges and schools attended by foreigners will be included in the Democratic Party of Japan’s pledge to make high school lessons free of charge, it has emerged. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has decided to make high school courses at technical colleges and vocational schools subject to the move, together…

Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi responded positively Thursday to the proposed granting of voting rights to foreign nationals with permanent residency in gubernatorial, mayoral and local assembly elections.  “Some conclusion should be reached on the matter, and I want to seek a realistic response,” he said in an interview with news organizations. A…

Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa says he will try to take the issue of giving foreigners local voting rights to next year’s regular Diet session. In a meeting with South Korean lawmaker Lee Sang Deuk in Tokyo on Saturday, Ozawa told Lee he favors granting local suffrage to permanent residents of Japan,…

Foreigners won’t have the right to vote in Sunday’s election but the national association of South Koreans, the largest ethnic group of permanent foreign residents, is waging a rare political campaign to win local-level suffrage because it believes there is too much at stake this time. The Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan), which represents…

[Gaffe-prone Prime Minister Taro] Aso also expressed his disapproval of DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama’s willingness to give local-level suffrage to foreign nationals with permanent residency. “Hatoyama says that Japan is not a country just for Japanese, but if that is the case, then whose country is it for?” Aso asked. “Honestly speaking, this isn’t something…

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the country’s main opposition political party and front-runner to take over the Japanese government in the elections to be held on August 30th, has promised a financial stimulus package of a different kind. Designed to address Japan’s increasingly worrisome drop in fertility rate, the DPJ’s stimulus, if enacted, will…