The port city of Kobe, which has a long history of openness and acceptance toward non-Japanese, has sent a letter to Japan’s national government about the new Immigration guidelines. The Kobe City Assembly, chaired by Mr. Kenji Yoshida, has drafted a consensus demanding clarification of the proposed guidelines and the criteria that Immigration will use when determining whether to renew visas. The letter was sent to a number of high-ranking government officials, including Prime Minister Hatoyama, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President of the House of Councilors, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Minister of Justice.
The letter takes issue with several key points of the new guidelines – points that both the city of Kobe and Free Choice agree must be satisfactorily addressed. For one, it questions the ambiguity of the guideline’s newly added provision that “an applicant for visa renewal must be covered by social insurance.” The guideline does not identify or even address the rules or standards that would be applied should an applicant not be enrolled in the social health plan. The letter further points out that many foreigners already carry private medical insurance and acknowledges that such plans can in many cases do a better job of covering many of the problems typically faced by foreigners, such as emergency family reunion expenses for serious illness or injury and repatriation of remains in the event of death. It also alludes to the guidelines’ silence on how such individuals are to be treated.
Kobe City has strong international heritage. It openly welcomes the foreign community, and has also worked diligently to attract foreign companies. By offering lower city taxes and other measures, it has created a zone friendly to outside businesses. The city is also well known for the large biotechnology sector that is housed on its Port Island and its active recruitment of foreign researchers to come and work there.
Chairman Yoshida and the Kobe City Assembly do not feel that the new Immigration guidelines are in the best interest of their city. They can foresee the potential detriment to their foreign community and, ultimately, to their city as a whole. We at Free Choice wholeheartedly applaud their stance. To find out more about Kobe’s stance on this issue, please visit:
http://www.freechoice.jp/kobe.asp
