File photo of Japan. BBC/Getty.
Japan has raised the fee for permanent residency in an effort to control immigration. BBC. The price has increased 20 times to $1270. Permanent residences will also meant new income, pension and Japanese language requirements. The visa hike is the first in 50 years. Immigration is a hot-button issue in Japan as the country tries to balance an aging population with a labor shortage. Japan's foreign born population was at 4.12 million, a 9.5% increase in 2025.
My Comment:
As one of the last homogonous Western countries, it is nice to see Japan taking steps to preserve their country from unlimited immigration. This means that Japan will probably have a much brighter future than most Western countries, barring a huge war with China or some act of God.
Indeed, these restrictions seem like common sense to me. Folks have to pay to play and if they don't they can't stay. They have to work while they are in Japan and make a decent amount of money while doing it and they also have to contribute to pension funds. And, they have to speak the language too! It's like a wish list for what we should have here in America.
Japan also seems to realize that bringing in millions of people that don't respect the local culture and act however they want is a bad thing. Japan does have a labor shortage, mostly due to an aging population, but the solution to that is not immigration. Some immigration is being allowed but the path the citizenship is hard to attain and citizenship is based on blood, not soil.
So why are they restricting things now? In short, some of the migrants brought in under the previous administration were not well behaved. Japan has seen a minor uptick in crime, but the source has been migrants. And there have been several high profile incidents of foreigners acting terribly, be they immigrants or immigrants, and that led to the conservative government getting into power and restricting things. Imagine that, a problem arises and the voters elect people to deal with it! It's not just crime, it's the fact that a lot of these people were not fitting in with Japan's culture of respect and cleanliness.
This new fee structure probably won't do a whole lot. The new restrictions and fees will make it a little harder for less desirable folks to get in while still allowing a few people in to help with the labor shortage. And those people won't automatically become citizens. It might not be a permanent solution for Japan but it's a lot better than what we are doing here in the United States.
