The “Japan Revitalization Strategy” (Revised in 2015) approved by the Cabinet in June 2015 set out “the goal of quickly preparing for an ‘era of 20 million’ foreign visitors coming to Japan, and its early realization”, and as a result of the promotion of various measures by the government aimed at the realization of a tourist-oriented country such as visa deregulation measures, the number of foreign nationals entering Japan in 2015 increased rapidly, exceeding expectations, to approximately 19,690,000 foreign visitors, an increase of 5,540,000 (39.2%) when compared to the previous year, approaching the level of achieving the goal.

Under such circumstances, additional immigration staff were increased on two occasions in FY 2015 with the placement of 35 additional staff members, including flexible dispatch of officers to the regional airports to handle examinations (including internal transfers), and an increase of 57 immigration inspectors in order to enhance and reinforce the immigration examination work of Kansai Airport and Naha Airport.

In FY 2016, a total of 162 additional immigration inspectors were assigned comprising the staff required for the immigration examinations at the major airports of Narita, Haneda, Chubu Centrair, Kansai, New Chitose, and Naha Airport, which account for about 90% of people entering and departing from all over Japan, the staff required for the secondary screening examinations to carry out rigorous and prompt landing examinations, the forensics staff for forged and altered documents in order to strengthen the border measures, the staff required to utilize and reinforce the facial image cross-checking functions in the landing examinations and the immigration personnel required to handle the regional airports and seaports and cruise ship passengers, and a total of 34 additional immigration control officers were assigned to enhance and reinforce the work of the deportation procedures.

Further, in September 2016, 62 additional immigration inspectors were assigned in order to enhance and reinforce immigration examination.

## 3 Training

As the number of foreign nationals entering and departing from Japan has been increasing year by year and the types of residence have diversified, the volume of services has increased and the contents of routine duties to be performed by immigration inspectors and immigration control officers have become more complicated and difficult. It is therefore indispensable to enhance the skills and abilities of the officers of the Immigration Bureau, and therefore we are now in the process of enriching and reinforcing our training program targeted for those officers.

In addition to systematic training for newly employed persons, middle-level persons and managers implemented by the Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice, which is a training organization of the Ministry of Justice, the Immigration Bureau

implements various kinds of training programs by not only staff with specialized knowledge but also outside experts are invited to give a lecture for the purpose of enhancing the professional knowledge of the staff, e.g. training for persons engaged in the detection of document forgery, training for persons engaged in entry and residence examination work, training for persons engaged in refugee recognition work, fingerprints examination training, and training for human rights and mental health.

Also, as the work of the Immigration Bureau is mainly concerned with foreign nationals, it makes efforts to improve language skills necessary for the work by organizing language seminars in English and other languages for staff at professional language schools, etc.

Training

Scene of an

inspection of immigration

control officers