Travel Guide for Stateless People

Born and raised in Japan and Japan won't give him citizenship? Jesus I knew they were xenophobic but wow.

Birthright citizenship is increasingly controversial in a lot of countries, not just Japan.

I believe it's a fairly common approach, so singling out Japan this way sounds a bit unfair. For sore Switzerland does it the same manner, for example.

The author can get citizenship[1] but chooses not to for what seems like activist reasons.

[1]: https://taejun.substack.com/p/founders-peak-speech-script

I am surprised by his situation as I know of the Zainichi Koreans here (Korean citizens who were born and raised in Japan and live here as an ethnic minority). My understanding of the situation is that they legally are able to naturalize and a significant minority of them do so, but many don't as they would have to renounce Korean citizenship.

I do find it quite unusual that he would not be allowed to naturalize after living all his life here and being married to a Japanese citizen, so perhaps there are other exceptional circumstances. Or perhaps his statelessness isn't something he is actively trying to resolve, having found ways to work around it when he needs to travel and do other things.

> Born and raised in Japan and Japan won't give him citizenship?

Unrestricted jus soli (extending nationality unconditionally to those born in the territory of the state, regardless of ancestry) is largely an American (as in "of the Americas", not merely "of the United States of America", though the latter is a significant reason why it is true of the former) thing, though there are a few countries outside of the Americas who do it as well.

Some more countries have restricted jus soli, extended to those born in the territory of the state only if the government judges them to be ineligible for nationality by the law of any other state, or perhaps only if the parents are actually stateless, as a way to mitigate statelessness. (And states who have adopted a rule of this type for this purpose may have done so after the UN Convention on stateless persons in 1954, and may not have applied it retroactively.)

Unconditional jus soli is rare, but a lot of countries have a good approximation of that for a practical reason -- to not have the administrative burden of dealing with people who already live there, participate in the society, pay taxes and all that, but don't get the right papers.

Japan doesn't have birthright citizenship (unrestricted jus soli) in the first place, it is a jus sanguinis jurisdiction with a very limited fallback jus soli (extending nationality on the basis of birth in Japan, rather than Japanese parentage, only to those whose parents are both either stateless or unknown.)

It varies a lot. It does happen that people are refused citizen ship of, even expelled from, the country they were born and grew up in many countries. It is not common, but it does happen.

There is a spectrum between giving citizenship to everyone born in a country (US) and not giving it at all (e.g. Thailand) and every country is somewhere inbetween with some kind of a qualifier and a procedure. Sometimes it's enough that both parents are in the country legally or have a residence there, sometimes you have to wait it out until you are 18 without hiding from reach of the state.

Practically, there is no point for the state to deny you citizenship if you went to school there and can do some kind of a job and pay taxes, because they can't even deport you to a country of origin if you are stateless and born there.

Technically even the US has the jurisdiction qualifier, which the orange clown wants to abuse.

The immigration system in Japan is quite open and straightforward on paper, but can be far more challenging in real life.

I know someone who tried to start the naturalization process but was instantly shot down for his Japanese skill (he speaks Japanese well). I know others who have lived in Japan for decades but cannot apply for permanent residency because they only receive short visas, making them ineligible.

Immigration officers have ultimate discretion and will not explain themselves to applicants. I assume this is by design so that particular 'standards' can be subtly applied without being reflected in statistics or receiving any criticism.