The Diet is likely to enact bills to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law and the Residents' Basic Register Law during its current session. The revisions might improve public services for legally residing foreign residents while leading to tighter control of foreigners who have overstayed their visas.

At the very least, the Justice Ministry would exercise stronger supervision over foreign residents since the current system in which municipalities issue alien registration cards will be abolished. Instead, the Immigration Bureau will step in.

Under the new system, foreign residents who legally reside in Japan for 90 days or longer must submit notifications of address changes to municipalities to be put on the residents' basic registry. The Justice Ministry will issue ID cards called zairyu (residency) cards on the basis of this residency information, visas and other points including employment. The ministry should not collect information that unnecessarily infringes on foreign residents' privacy.

The system is supposed to improve administrative services — such as public support related to children attending school and child rearing — for registered foreign residents, who number 2.15 million. Visas, typically good for three years, would be extended to five years and foreign residents would not be required to obtain re-entry permits if they return to Japan within a year.

It is unclear, however, whether foreign residents feel that the new system is a change for the better because they could lose their residential status if they fail to report changes in personal information within 90 days, and even face imprisonment if they fail to renew ID cards or supply false information when renewing ID cards. The Justice Ministry could also share information on individual foreign residents with the police.

The new system would exclude the estimated 110,000 undocumented foreign residents. As of 2008, about 18,000 of them were registered with municipalities and some received public services. The new system could force them to go underground, a move that would neither benefit them nor the government.