Chega will present a draft resolution to ask the Government to temporarily suspend family reunification until the migration situation “is resolved”, announced today the party leader, who accused the executive of ineffectiveness in this matter.
“I would like to announce that (...) we are going to ask the Government to block and suspend the family reunification that is being considered for the coming months”, announced André Ventura, speaking to journalists outside an evangelical church in Loures where, last week, the PSP discovered a warehouse used for illegal housing for immigrants.
The right to family reunification is established in Portuguese legislation for those who have obtained a valid residence permit in Portugal, and may request the entry and residence of family members in the country.
When asked whether it does not seem to him to be a humanistic situation that anyone who enters Portugal legally and has a residence permit can bring their family, André Ventura responded that this question “should have been raised before”.
“They shouldn’t have come in. And now they’re coming in, families are coming, and so we could go from one and a half million to two million immigrants in just a few months – just so people have this idea. This is unsustainable,” he said.
Ventura argued that the suspension of family reunification “has nothing to do with humanism, with being acceptable or not”, nor does it aim to “penalize anyone”, but rather to ensure that Portugal does not become “a magnet for immigration”, accusing the executive of being ineffective in this matter.
When asked how long this suspension should be in force, Ventura replied: “Until we have resolved the situation.”
“We have hundreds of thousands of people whose immigration situation has not yet been resolved, we still haven’t even managed to expel those we had notified we were going to expel… I mean, are we going to let more people in?” he asked.
Asked whether the suspension request is intended to cover those who entered Portugal under refugee status, such as refugees from Ukraine, André Ventura distinguished between those who come "from visible, notorious and understandable conflicts" and immigrants for other reasons.
“It’s one thing for those who come from visible, notorious and understandable conflicts, as is the case in Ukraine (…) or women who came from Afghanistan. None of that happens to those who are here: these are not women from Afghanistan who are here [in Loures], around Arroios or in the center of Lisbon,” he said.
Ventura then argued that "for now, no one should access family reunification until the country has regularized half a million people."
“This seems obvious to me. We didn’t regularize half a million and we’re going to let another half a million in?” he said.
Last week, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) warned that the number of foreigners will increase with requests for family reunification from those who have been regularized and the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, promised moderation.
Of the 446,000 pending expressions of interest processes that existed a year ago, around 170,000 were terminated due to a lack of response from applicants and 35 were rejected, but those who saw their process approved have the right to request family reunification.
An official government source told Lusa that family reunification will be limited to the capacity of Portuguese society to integrate immigrants.