Government Approves 230 New Immigration Officers to Boost Overstayer Crackdown, Sets Up Expert Panel on Numerical Acceptance Targets
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On the morning of July 24, 2026, the government held a meeting of relevant cabinet ministers on foreign national policy at the Prime Minister's Office and decided to increase immigration staffing to strengthen the crackdown on foreign nationals who overstay their period of residence. The plan calls for adding about 230 officers in total — roughly 50 immigration control officers and about 180 immigration examiners — with related cabinet order revisions expected to be approved as early as the end of this month. The additional immigration control officers are to be concentrated in Ibaraki Prefecture, said to have the highest number of illegal workers, while the examiners will be assigned to expediting and tightening residence status screening.
The government also announced it would establish a new expert panel to examine numerical targets for the number of foreign nationals accepted into Japan, with a plan to compile basic guidelines within the current fiscal year. As of the end of 2025, the number of foreign residents in Japan stood at about 4.12 million, roughly 1.5 times the figure at the end of 2021, and the coalition agreement between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party explicitly calls for formulating a population strategy incorporating numerical targets within fiscal 2026.
Current status: As of this writing, the related cabinet order has not yet been formally approved, and details such as the specific deployment of the additional staff and the membership of the expert panel are expected to be announced later. This article will be updated as further details become available.
This decision represents the formalization of the emergency staffing increase previously reported (related coverage). It is positioned within a broader series of immigration policy reinforcements, including the "Zero Illegal Overstayers Plan – Strong Promotion Package" (related coverage) and enhanced efforts to persuade deportees to leave voluntarily (related coverage).