In the first place, in order to create or change a law, there needs to be evidence or data (立法事実) to establish some kind of problem that needs fixing. For example, in this case, there would have to be statistics about the refugee acceptance process including the number of refugees who could be described as taking advantage of this “loophole” in the system.
Now here’s the problem. When pressed on providing their evidence in committee, the government admitted that they aren’t actually tabulating any data! In other words, they can’t provide any fact-based foundation for this legal revision. How can one assert that tons of refugees are abusing a loophole in the system without even being able to provide the simple number showing how many there are?
It’s also important to keep in mind that Japan, alongside other developed countries, has signed up for the “1951 Refugee Convention” (難民条約) which establishes Japan as a country that accepts refugees in the first place. If Japan doesn’t want to accept any refugees, the country should back out of the convention. Instead, they are allowing people to apply through the official process, get continuously rejected, and end up in detention hell where their human rights are abused. As described by an opposition lawmaker in the 2nd video above, there is a detained refugee from Myanmar who is at risk of being tortured and killed if this law passes and he is forcibly sent back. He declared that he will commit suicide if it comes to that.
Furthermore, there is something clearly wrong with the acceptance process itself, when less than 1% of applicants are accepted, especially when compared to other developed countries which have a much higher acceptance rate. Again, if you think Japan has the right to arbitrarily refuse all refugees, then they should just exit the Refugee Convention, or find a way to pass refugees to other countries that might be willing to accept them, instead of deporting them back to a country where they will be tortured and killed.
The article and videos go into more detail about the many issues that arose during the committee process, particularly about the refugee approval process, above and beyond what I summarized above, including testimony regarding an [intoxicated immigration facility doctor](https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14921135). This is a complete farce.
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[[Related Thread]](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/1424kir/5500_rally_in_tokyo_against_revised_immigration/)
Also, these videos [[1]](https://twitter.com/emorikousuke/status/1666426048937099266) [[2]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qenSa0t0eew) and [article](https://d4p.world/news/21439/) (Japanese) provide a strong explanation of how this bill isn’t just “closing a loophole.”
I will attempt to summarize:
In the first place, in order to create or change a law, there needs to be evidence or data (立法事実) to establish some kind of problem that needs fixing. For example, in this case, there would have to be statistics about the refugee acceptance process including the number of refugees who could be described as taking advantage of this “loophole” in the system.
Now here’s the problem. When pressed on providing their evidence in committee, the government admitted that they aren’t actually tabulating any data! In other words, they can’t provide any fact-based foundation for this legal revision. How can one assert that tons of refugees are abusing a loophole in the system without even being able to provide the simple number showing how many there are?
It’s also important to keep in mind that Japan, alongside other developed countries, has signed up for the “1951 Refugee Convention” (難民条約) which establishes Japan as a country that accepts refugees in the first place. If Japan doesn’t want to accept any refugees, the country should back out of the convention. Instead, they are allowing people to apply through the official process, get continuously rejected, and end up in detention hell where their human rights are abused. As described by an opposition lawmaker in the 2nd video above, there is a detained refugee from Myanmar who is at risk of being tortured and killed if this law passes and he is forcibly sent back. He declared that he will commit suicide if it comes to that.
Furthermore, there is something clearly wrong with the acceptance process itself, when less than 1% of applicants are accepted, especially when compared to other developed countries which have a much higher acceptance rate. Again, if you think Japan has the right to arbitrarily refuse all refugees, then they should just exit the Refugee Convention, or find a way to pass refugees to other countries that might be willing to accept them, instead of deporting them back to a country where they will be tortured and killed.
The article and videos go into more detail about the many issues that arose during the committee process, particularly about the refugee approval process, above and beyond what I summarized above, including testimony regarding an [intoxicated immigration facility doctor](https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14921135). This is a complete farce.