Foreign residents flocked to immigration centers Wednesday in a last-minute rush to replace now-defunct certificates of alien registration with new residence cards.
They crammed into a room at the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau in Shinagawa on Wednesday, which was the deadline for the exchange.
There was such a sharp surge this week that the regional immigration bureau drafted staff from other departments to cope, said spokesman Ken Saito. But despite the increased manpower, the applicants still experienced a wait that was longer than usual, he acknowledged.