### Chapter 1. Amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act

## 1 Outline

In order to establish a new status of residence pertaining to foreign nationals qualified as a certified care worker to realize the acceptance of foreign nationals engaging in nursing care, and as a countermeasure against imposter residents, to establish a penalty to be imposed against those who received landing permission, etc. through deception or other wrongful means, and expand the grounds for revocation of statuses of residence, the Bill for Partial Amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act which incorporated such measures was submitted to the 189th session of the Diet on March 6, 2015.

This was later collectively deliberated together with the “Bill on Proper Implementation of Technical Intern Training for Foreign Nationals and Protection of the Technical Intern Trainees” (described in the Chapter 2) by the Legal Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives for the 190th session of the Diet in 2016, and subsequently became subject to continued deliberations at the next Diet session. The outline of this bill is as follows.

## ② Establishment of the New Status of Residence of “Nursing Care”

Foreign students studying in Japan cannot engage in nursing care in Japan even if they have graduated from a Japanese institute of higher education and have acquired the designated national qualification of a certified care worker, etc. except in permitted cases under the framework of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Indonesia, the Philippines or Viet Nam.

However, because of the progressively aging population, there is great demand for high-quality nursing care, and therefore, both the “Japan Revitalization Strategy (Revised in 2014)” (approved by the Cabinet on June 24, 2014) and the recommendations of the 6th Immigration Policy Discussions Panel called for a system enabling foreign students who have graduated from a Japanese institute of higher education and who have acquired the qualification of a certified care worker to be allowed to work in Japan.

On the basis of such requests, a new status of residence of “Nursing Care” was established to enable foreign students, who have graduated from a Japanese institute of higher education designated as a certified care worker training facility and acquired the qualification of a certified care worker, to engage in the work of nursing care or the instructions of nursing care as a certified care worker based on a contract with a Japanese nursing care facility, etc.

## ③ Strengthening of Countermeasures Against Imposter Residents

While the number of foreign nationals overstaying their authorized period of stay has been decreasing because of the strengthening of border measures and the promotion of exposure, a problem of so-called imposter residents who illegally acquire a status of residence and reside in Japan by disguising their status or activities through filing a false declaration or false documents exists, and the “Strategy to Establish ‘Japan as the World’s Safest Country’” (approved by the Cabinet on December 10, 2013) also referred to proactively working on the promotion of countermeasures against imposter residents.