Japan, increasingly concerned about as many as 250,000 foreign workers who have overstayed their visas, is cracking down. In the month from September 19 to October 17, immigration forces and the Tokyo police caught 1,643 illegal foreign workers, the largest number recorded so far for a single month. Most were caught in Tokyo's 23 wards as well as the suburban areas.
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That Japan has had an uneasy relationship with foreigners goes without saying. It is a society that has been deeply distrustful of gaijin, as foreigners are known, regarding them as culturally inferior. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan remained a sakoku, a closed country.
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But as the population ages and the country's needs for labor have grown, it has grudgingly opened its doors to temporary workers - very grudgingly. The United Nations has estimated that because of its aging population, Japan could use as many as 600,000 foreign-born workers as immigrants per year. Nonetheless, only 0.2 percent of its population is foreign-born, compared to as much as 20 percent of Australia's and 18 percent in the US.

26-Jul-06 | 4:35 PM
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