Japan will aim to promote smoother acceptance of legal foreign workers, while at the same time taking stronger measures to weed out illegal aliens, according to a revised edition of the Basic Plan for Immigration Control to be released today by the Justice Ministry.
The basic plan, designed to cover the five years to 2005, needs to be updated to reflect social changes such as rapid progress in internationalization, the aging and the depopulation of Japanese society, as well as the increasing number of foreigners illegally entering and staying in Japan, the ministry said.
The previous edition of the plan was released in 1992 as guidelines for the Immigration Control Law, which was amended in 1989. Basic plans are renewed when the ministry considers it necessary due to changes in social conditions, a ministry official said.