Japan's ruling bloc and two opposition parties agreed Thursday to revise a controversial bill that, if passed, would amend an immigration law enabling authorities to deport individuals who apply repeatedly for refugee status.
Following the agreement, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner Komeito, along with the two opposition parties, are seeking to vote on the bill as early as Friday at the lower house committee on judicial affairs, lawmakers said.
The bill, designed to resolve issues surrounding Japan's "detention-centered" model of immigration policy, is expected to enact the legislation by the end of the ongoing Diet session through June, with the country's main opposition party against the revision.
Japan's system for determining refugee status has led to an issue known as "long-term detention," where some foreign nationals who refuse deportation orders are detained for indeterminate and extended periods in the country's immigration facilities.
Among the proposed changes, the law would allow the government to deport those who apply for refugee status three times or more if they fail to provide an adequate reason for why they need their application approved.
Currently, Japan cannot forcibly send foreign nationals back to their home countries provided their application for a refugee permit is pending. Legal experts have claimed that the proposed changes may lead to people at risk of persecution in their home country being deported.
In 2021, the government shelved an amendment bill of the immigration law amid growing backlash after a 33-year-old Sri Lankan woman died while being held at an immigration facility in the central city of Nagoya that year.
She had been complaining of stomach pain and other symptoms for a few months and eventually died due to a lack of necessary medical care. Her family maintains she was illegally detained and filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government.
Earlier this year, however, the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida resubmitted the bill to parliament. It largely retains the contents of the bill that was previously withdrawn, with the government arguing that the problem of "long-term detention" should be resolved.
The leading opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which opposes the bill, has called for the establishment of a third-party body to screen the refugee recognition process, conducted by immigration authorities, to ensure the fairness of the procedure.
The ruling bloc presented a draft amendment pledging to "consider" setting up such an organization, but the main opposition party did not accept the offer.
The amendment bill, meanwhile, is set to introduce some minor changes, including training immigration officials on how to screen asylum seekers, as proposed by the Japan Innovation Party that participated in Thursday's negotiations with the ruling camp.
In 2022, Japan gave refugee status to 202 people, a record high since it began granting it in 1982. But the number lags behind that of European countries, where refugee and asylum claims are often accepted in their tens of thousands annually, as well as the United States.
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