Japan May Stop Sending Deportation Notices to Lawyers of Foreign Nationals

The Yomiuri Shimbun

21:00 JST, January 26, 2026

Within the year, the Immigration Services Agency (ISA) may stop providing advance notice to attorneys about foreign nationals who are to be deported.

Currently, the agency must inform attorneys representing illegal residents of the scheduled repatriation date about two months in advance. The change in policy will likely be met with opposition from the legal community.

Deportation of those who have overstayed their visa or entered the country illegally is regulated by the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. About 74,800 people in Japan had overstayed their allowed time in the country as of January 2025, and about 7,600 people were repatriated in 2024.

Those who are to be forcibly repatriated often hire lawyers and file lawsuits seeking to have their deportation canceled. Some have argued that not knowing one’s scheduled deportation date infringes upon the constitutionally guaranteed right of access to the court.

In September 2010, when the Democratic Party of Japan was in power, the Immigration Bureau (now the ISA) and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) signed an agreement on deportation rules, with the bureau having to inform people of their deportation date in the form of “the Xth week of Y month” via an attorney at least two months before the deportation. At least 50 such notifications were made in 2025.

However, that rule has become disruptive, sources said. Since 2019, there have been at least seven cases in which foreigners fled before deportation, and five of them were still at large at the end of 2025. In other cases, the scheduled deportation date was shared via social media, leading to complaints by phone at immigration counters, or a halted deportation led to flight cancellation fees and other expenses amounting to about ¥3 million.

Given these issues, the ISA said it is in discussion with the JFBA to review the rule and has indicated to it that it already plans to stop providing notices.

A JFBA official declined to tell The Yomiuri Shimbun if they are in discussion, but said that there have been many “exceptional” cases in which notice was provided at the last minute.

“You could call this a breach of the agreement. It ignores people’s right to access the court and is problematic from a humanitarian perspective as well,” the official said. “They should continue to notify attorneys [in a timely manner].”

The ISA intends to continue to notify foreign nationals directly of their deportation at least a month beforehand, telling them they will be “deported as soon as one month from now” without specifying a deportation date.