DataRepublican (small r)@DataRepublican
🧵 THREAD: How mass immigration came to Japan's shores
𝕏 saw a lovely cultural exchange between Americans and Japanese this past week, which got me wondering how and why Muslims came to Japan... so I spent the weekend looking into it.
Japan went from officially having "no immigration policy" to a formal system with a cap of 820,000 foreign workers. Japan's Muslim population has gone from ~110,000 (2010) to ~420,000 (end of 2024). There are now 149 mosques.
The bill that created this was passed at 4:00 AM in December 2018. The opposition called it a "carte blanche." Deliberations were compressed. It passed anyway.
What I found:
🔹 Three consecutive foreign ministers trained at American universities.
🔹 A foundation run by a Trilateral Commission member and a former US intelligence chief.
🔹 A $69 million fellowship network seeding 69 universities in 44 countries.
🔹 A UN framework signed the same month as the 4 AM vote.
🔹 Sixteen bilateral labor agreements managed through a single coordinating body.
🔹 A Japan-specific immigration program drafted by a Japanese national while he was interning inside the US Senate.
In July 2025, a party that didn't exist before COVID won 14 seats and finished third in the popular vote. By February 2026, the LDP won its biggest parliamentary majority since 1955, running on tighter immigration.
Unfortunately, Americans and Japanese have more in common beyond love of BBQ. They have the mass migration problem in common. Receipts below. 👇
As always, patience as I pull together the thread.
