Feb

Expat Daily: Expat Ph.D.s, Japan’s Immigration Laws

admin Education, Expat community, Newcomers, life abroad 2010-02-04

USA Keeps Expat Ph.D Grads

It appears that fears that foreign students would not stay or be allowed into the USA after 9/11 is untrue. A recent survey has found 62% of foreign students who earn the Ph.D.s in the US stay. “Most foreigners who came to the U.S. to earn doctorate degrees in science and engineering stayed on after graduation—at least until the recession began—refuting predictions that post-9/11 restrictions on immigrants or expanding opportunities in China and India would send more of them home. Newly released data revealed that 62% of foreigners holding temporary visas who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. Of those who graduated in 1997, 60% were still in the U.S. in 2007, according to the data compiled by the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the National Science Foundation.”

Japan Enforces Strict Immigrations Laws During

Recession

As Japan clamps down on immigration as it battles with the ongoing world economic crisis. It is common practice in Japan for police to stop expats and ask for their identification. As an expat one should be prepared to show their documents immediately or face deportation. “Aggressive enforcement of Japanese immigration laws has increased in recent years as the country’s economy has floundered and the need for cheap foreign labor has fallen. Nationality in Japan is based on blood and parentage, not place of birth. This island nation was closed to the outside world until the 1850s, when U.S. warships forced it to open up to trade. Wariness of foreigners remains a potent political force, one that politicians dare not ignore, especially when the economy is weak. As a result, the number of illegal immigrants has been slashed, often by deportation, from 300,000 in 1995 to just 130,000, a minuscule number in comparison to other rich countries. The United States, whose population is 2 1/2 times that of Japan’s, has about 90 times as many illegal immigrants (11.6 million). Among highly developed countries, Japan also ranks near the bottom in the percentage of legal foreign residents. Just 1.7 percent are foreign or foreign-born, compared with about 12 percent in the United States. Japan held a pivotal election last year and voters tossed out a party that had ruled for nearly 50 years. But the winner, the Democratic Party of Japan, has so far done nothing to alter immigration policy.”