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Paper short abstract

This study examines how differential and selective inclusion frameworks function within Japan's post-2023 governance and how they are experienced by asylum seekers from Türkiye by combining policy analysis with qualitative research, including interviews with immigrants from Türkiye and field observations.

Paper long abstract

Revisions to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act(ICRRA) were passed in 2023, aiming to address controversial issues in Japan, such as low refugee recognition rates, challenges in the detention system, repeated asylum applications, and overstays. Together with accompanying measures introduced in subsequent years, including special residency grants for families with children born in Japan, revisions in ICRRA reshaped the legal conditions of immigrants and asylum seekers, yet their everyday consequences are unexplored.

Addressing this gap, this study examines the real-life implications of post-2023 policies for asylum seekers from Türkiye, a group increasingly visible in public debates as non-recognized asylum seekers and the state rationale for selective inclusion mechanisms.

The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining critical policy analysis of legislative documents and governmental notifications with qualitative research. Qualitative data includes semi-structured interviews with Turkish immigrants in Saitama Prefecture, complemented by participant observation through community engagement and work as an immigrant consultant and interpreter.

Post-2023 policies produce differential legal stratification within the community and household level through fragmented access to rights and services, resulting in layered precarity. While some migrants on provisional release obtained residency status through special grants, improving access to services, others experienced no change, status loss, or shifts to supervisory measures without meaningful improvements in daily life. Many remain excluded from health insurance and lawful employment, continuing to face deportation. Additional restrictive measures, such as the inability to renew driving licenses, further exacerbate social exclusion and access barriers. Legal outcomes are often fragmented within families, with partial family recognition intensifying insecurity and constraining decision-making, while bureaucratic nontransparency heightens uncertainties. Furthermore, the overvisibility of Kurdish asylum seekers in public debates and social media, combined with policy changes, heightens their precariousness as they face growing hate speech and anti-immigrant sentiment.

By foregrounding migrants’ experiences, this paper contributes to migration and refugee studies on Japan by demonstrating the everyday consequences of Japan’s post-2023 policies for immigrants from Türkiye, which remains understudied, and contributing to existing theory of legal stratification of asylum seekers through introducing a future-oriented selection logic: the axis of perceived future contribution.