ABSTRACT
The Japanese government has been playing a great role in promoting the idea of human security in the world, and this idea has been represented as ‘one of the important pillars of Japan’s foreign policy’ by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2009). However, human security only forms part of Japanese foreign policy and does not translate into domestic policies, including migration policy. The government has never depicted irregular migrants in Japan as a vulnerable group worthy of protection, except for trafficked victims in certain situations. Rather, as this chapter argues, irregular migrants are usually thought of as a social or national security threat.
