Japan knows how to handle migrant workers

Japan will handle immigration in a practical and effective way that deters unruly behavior and maintains national identity while profiting from foreign labor. 

On Friday, its government expanded the nation’s visa program to include four more industries. It also plans to bring in 820,000 foreign workers over the next five years, double what was predicted this time last year. 

This measure is intended to address Japan’s primary issue, that being its declining birth rate. Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, and also one of the oldest populations in the world. It does not have enough young people to join the workforce and compensate for their elders going into retirement. Skilled foreigners therefore are being invited to labor jobs. 

This plan may raise alarms for those in the West who now understand the consequences of permissive immigration policies. Too many countries in the West have allowed compassion to dilute their own culture by flooding their lands with foreigners who have little interest in continuing the traditions of the societies they are occupying. 

The United States bureaucracy stops its state governments from protecting its citizens from hostile invasions at their own borders, while it flies illegal immigrants into cities from dangerous Latin American countries. 

Meanwhile, European oligarchs refuse to enforce their own borders, and they blame mass sexual assaults and gang violence against law-abiding citizens on their people’s failure to culturally accept them. 

Contrarily, Japan has a strong national identity and does not share the pathetic, self-loathing “compassion” of the West. Its new law requires applicants to first speak Japanese at its third highest level. It also gives them training assistance in their chosen industry and requires them to actually be a skilled worker. 

Deportation laws are quite strict and strongly followed in Japan, especially for foreigners who commit crimes, who are normally banned from ever setting foot there again. The citizenship process only begins after five consecutive years of residency, and native-borns must have had one Japanese parent at birth. Japanese law also maintains a very small window for who qualifies as actual asylum-seekers. 

Even with this slight loosening of Japan’s tight immigration restrictions, it is likely only a temporary measure. Japan is an incredibly high-tech society and one of the largest economic powerhouses in the world. As populations around the world decrease, they will need to fill the shoes of missing younger workers. 

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This is where robots come in. Japanese work ethic and intuitiveness will push them to the forefront of the automation business in the future. As they always do, they will educate themselves on the new artificial intelligence and robotics technologies being made and make them even better. Japan may very well rely on robots for labor, removing the need to bring in foreign workers. 

Migration is a tool to be used by a nation for its success that can also benefit those in other, less fortunate ones. While by Western standards, Japan’s methods may seem almost harsh, the West should learn from Japan’s example amid our unnecessary migration crisis. 

Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner Winter Fellow.