referred to proactively working on the promotion of countermeasures against imposter residents.

In light of this, a penalty will be established to punish imposter residents, and measures will be taken to expand the grounds for revocation of the status of residence.

Specifically, while previously there was no penalty with regard to persons who obtained landing permission or permission to change the status of residence, etc. through deception or other wrongful means, a penalty will be imposed on the foreign national, through this amendment, which is equivalent to the current penalty for illegal entry or illegal landing, and a penalty will also be established against those persons who facilitate the execution of this act for the purpose of profit, while the associated grounds for deportation and the grounds for revocation of the status of residence will be also revised.

In addition, with regard to the system of revocation of the status of residence, while previously revocation of the status of residence was possible only in cases where the foreign national had not engaged continuously for three months or more in the activities corresponding to the status of residence that had been granted, through this amendment, in such cases as a technical intern trainee who has left the training location without permission in accordance with the solicitation of a broker, it will be possible to immediately revoke the status of residence even before the elapse of three months in the case where the suspect resides engaging in or attempting to engage in other activities without engaging in the original activities, because it is deemed inappropriate that the suspect retains the status of residence. Moreover, if there are reasonable grounds to believe that foreign nationals whose status of residence has been revoked for the reasons mentioned above will flee, it will be possible to immediately switch to the deportation procedures, without setting a grace period for departure, in order to prevent such foreign nationals from concealing their whereabouts and remaining illegally in Japan.

Moreover, immigration control officers in addition to immigration inspectors will be able to conduct inquiry into the facts relating to revocation of the status of residence.

## Section 3 ☐ Submission of the Bill on Proper Implementation of Technical Intern Training for Foreign Nationals and Protection of the Technical Intern Trainees

With regard to the system of technical intern training, as described in Chapter 1, Section 1, 1 (2), amid circumstances requiring a vast review of the entire system, a basic direction of institutional revision was indicated in June 2014 in the "Results of the Study on the Direction of the Revision of the System of Technical Intern Training (Report)" compiled by the Sub-Panel for Discussion on the System of the Acceptance of Foreign Nationals, and the "Japanese Revitalization Strategy (Revised in 2014)" (approved by the Cabinet on June 24, 2014) set out "optimization of the system to ensure thorough understanding of the intent, which is the aim of making an international contribution, and fundamental revision of the system of technical intern training for foreign nationals such as expansion of the target occupations, extension of the training period, expansion of the fixed quota for acceptance and other matters, and submission of the necessary bill" with "the aim of transition to the new system within FY 2015".

Therefore, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare studied specific measures for revision of the system, and submitted a “Bill on Proper Implementation of Technical Intern Training for Foreign Nationals and Protection of the Technical Intern Trainees” to the 189th session of the Diet on March 6, 2015 after hearing the views of the labor and management organizations, academics and other experts at the Joint Experts Discussion Panel of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare established in November 2014. The outline of this bill is as follows.