Misinfo: No, there is no "mental-health exam" as part of Japanese naturalization
Monday, March 13, 2017
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| photo used under license from iStock/Getty |
The interest in Japan as a target for immigration is due to the recent announcement in the slight relaxation in the path to permanent residency status via points system rules making waves in the press. A points system for immigration is not novel or unique to Japan. Japan's point system (as well as its rules for naturalization) merely mimics similar points systems used in other countries like Germany. And like the system in Germany, it doesn't bring in very many because it is still pretty demanding.
As a footnote in many of these articles on the point system and permanent residency in Japan, many writers have mentioned naturalization. One such article is written by Chris Weller for Business Insider: "It just got easier to become a permanent resident of Japan — here’s how you do it".
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| Only some successful naturalization candidates get any sort of formal ceremony |
New citizens must be at least 20 years old …
- Essentially true, with exceptions for minors (19 and under in Japan) naturalizing with their families.
… have lived in the country for at least five years …
- Essentially true, but again, with exceptions for those qualifying for the simplified naturalization process, and he forgot an important qualifier: not a total of five years, but almost continuously and physically present for five years.
… be willing to renounce their former citizenship …
- Essentially true, and I appreciate how he uses the word "willing" as there are some special cases for countries where doing so is legally impossible thus they use an alternative process.
Officials will perform a …
… background check, …
- Both domestic and international, and this should be obvious as having a clean criminal and immigration record is considered to be a good indicator as to whether one will obey the laws of Japan. As for what they look for and how they look for it, this is not disclosed for security reasons.
… mental-health exam, …
- This is the only thing in this article that is completely false.
In fact, there is no health check, either physical or mental, for naturalization, and this is one thing that makes it different from applying for permanent resident visa status in Japan, which does state that the candidate should be in good health. Most countries have this provision in their immigration requirements to prevent people from immigrating exclusively to use taxpayer guaranteed medical benefits of the country. Obviously, like signing any important contract, if the examiner determines you are not mentally competent or lack the mental capacity to understand the consequences of changing your nationality, your application may be denied — just like it would anywhere else in the world where entering into a permanent serious contract is required. But no, there is no mental health exam.
… will request a long list of documents related to your life and your family.
- This is true. In order to both build your Japanese national family register, indicating your parents, your children, and your spouse, as well as to determine if you qualify for simplified naturalization, they will require official vital records for both yourself and your immediate family.
They may even inspect your home and workplace if those details are hard to verify online.
- True, and I appreciate how he did not repeat the trope about how the work and home inspection is done to see if you act "Japanese enough".
The whole review process takes roughly six months to a year.
- Every situation is different, and I have seen the process take from as short as four months to as long as eighteen months. The article cites the site "Just Landed", which actually got its information from this site after we cited it as having huge amounts of misinformation in it regarding Japanese naturalization. However, this article misquotes the revised Just Landed page on Japanese naturalization. The Just Landed page (as well as this site, which it used), does not say "the whole review process" (that is, the process that begins after your paperwork is formally submitted), but rather cited the amount of time it takes for the individual to collect and prepare all their paperwork.
Citizenship requires knowing Japanese at a 7-year-old reading level (while permanent residence comes with no such requirement)
- This is partially true. There is technically no Japanese language requirement, but there is the requirement that you possess the life skills necessary to make it in Japan, and for most everybody, this means having at least rudimentary Japanese language skills to work at a low level job in the Japanese language only. If they do decide to evaluate your Japanese, it can be oral, ad-hoc (just speaking with and understanding your case worker and the documents he or she presents to you is often enough to satisfy the language "requirement"), and may involve reading and writing.