The “irregular” immigration of foreign migrant workers in Japan during the last ten Years caused a steadily growing public discussion about the status and function of those “illegal” immigrants in the Japanese society and economy. They are about 200.000 to 300.000, mainly coming from Asian countries with lower (South Korea) or extremely lower (Bangladesh) average income. Most of them are doing jobs marked as dirty, dangerous and laborious. Following different theoretical concepts “irregular” migration is caused by objective economic and demographic (poverty, population surplus) as well as subjective (success, prestige) factors. The Japanese state imposes measures of control, but fails to prevent the influx of “irregular” immigrants. The public opinion in this sense is divided between regularisation and rejection. The arguments provided by both sides do not considerably differ from those brought forward in central European countries, the same as the ways of acting of the state bureaucracy, the employers and the agents show much similarity. Labour migration (including it´s “irregular” variety) is an unavoidable consequence of the world system of unequal distribution of income and wealth.
