A growing community of Kurdish refugees in Japan is facing years in legal limbo denied permanent residency, work rights and health care.

Centred around the small city of Kawaguchi, on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan’s Kurdish community first emerged in the 1990s when families from south-eastern Turkey arrived seeking refuge from persecution and ethnic conflict.

Most settled at Kawaguchi, in the Saitama prefecture, which is now home to around 2500 Kurds – the largest Kurdish population in Japan.

Unlike other migrants who come to Japan through student or skilled labour programs, many Kurds apply for asylum.

But Japan has traditionally accepted only a fraction of refugee applications.

For example, in 2024 just 190 of 12,373 applicants were granted full refugee status.

Consequently, most Kurdish applicants are left in what is called ‘karihomen’ status – temporarily released from detention, unable to legally work rights, access health coverage, or permanent residency.

In July 2023 a street brawl involving more and a hundred Kurds inflamed tensions and went viral on social media.

A few months later, the arrest of a Kurdish man on suspicion of sexual assault triggered far-right protests and nationalist, inflammatory rhetoric. 

There were calls for mass deportations and largely indiscriminate violence.

Local news reports told of the fears Kurdish parents have for their children, many of who speak Japanese and have not known life outside the country.

Japan’s immigration law allows applicants to remain in the country while their cases are pending. But almost all are rejected.

Bizarrely, deportation is rarely enforced, especially for families and long-term residents.

And the result has been the rise of a stateless class of people with no pathway forward and no legal status.

A 2024 review of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act introduced stricter rules for repeat asylum seekers.

But critics say it tightened procedures without addressing structural flaws, represented by an opaque and difficult to navigate system that is out of step with international standards.

Kurdish families living in Japan face daily contradictions. Children attend Japanese schools and usually speak the language fluently. But parents can’t work legally and face immigration assessments and possible deportation.

Advocates say the system has left families in desperate situations, often forced to turn to work in the black economy, creating social instability and exploitation.

They say Japan’s approach to immigration has long been characterised by ‘passive exclusion’ allowing irregular residents to stay while avoiding full legal recognition.

The Kurdish community has almost become a meme for a larger national question the Japanese face around identity, migration and an ageing population.

Underpinning all of this is a deeper question, which seems to have created a divide between young and old, about the kind of country Japan wants to be into the future.