The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday approved a bill to introduce a system to review every three months whether a detainee needs to remain at an immigration facility.
The bill to amend the immigration control and refugee recognition law is aimed at resolving the prolonged detention of foreign nationals who have been ordered to leave Japan.
The government plans to submit the bill during the ongoing parliamentary session.
The government submitted a similar bill to amend the law in 2021. But it was scrapped after the death of a Sri Lankan woman at an immigration facility in central Japan came to light.
The previous bill called for limiting the number of times a foreign national can apply for refugee status to two, in principle, in order to prevent repeated applications to avoid deportation, and for introducing a system to allow foreign nationals to live outside immigration facilities instead of being detained.
The new bill retains the basic outline of the previous bill, while including the three-month detention review system.
The new bill also calls for creating a "quasi-refugee" status for those fleeing armed conflict who do not fall under the narrow definition of "refugee" under the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The U.N. convention defines refugees as those who may be persecuted for their race, religion, nationality and other reasons, and the government basically only recognizes refugees under this definition.
The new bill will allow those with quasi-refugee status to obtain permanent residency, work and join the national health insurance program.
Ukrainians who have fled to Japan from Russia's invasion are expected to be granted the new status.