At a hearing in the Assembly of the Republic, Luís Neves said that violent crime is lower among immigrants than among nationals. He attacked the fake news that they try to create panic in Portugal.
The national director of the Judicial Police, Luís Neves, said on Wednesday (26/02) in the Commission of Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees of the Assembly of the Republic, that it is not possible to relate immigration and crime. He cited two types of crimes as an example. “We continue, unfortunately, with many homicides and with many crimes of domestic violence in the country. These crimes, in 90% (of the cases), are committed by national citizens,” he said.
Neves presented to the deputies the statistics on the fall of crime in Portugal. “Taking as a base 450,000 immigrants in 2009 to, in 2023, 1,446,446, if we do the ratio, we have fewer foreigners detained,” he calculated. The false discourse that associates immigrants with crime is disseminated, above all, by the far-right parties.
The director of the PJ sought to distinguish the immigrants, who chose to live in Portugal, either working or studying from travelers who commit crimes. “An immigrant is a foreigner. But a foreigner is not necessarily an immigrant, because the chains have a lot of foreign people in prison who are not immigrants,” he said.
As an example, he cited the so-called mules that bring narcotics to Portugal and to Europe. “I’m talking about many poor women coming from Brazil, Venezuela, Latin America, who bring about 800 grams of cocaine. The women’s chains are full of these women,” he explained.
Legalization against crime
The head of the Judicial Police also mentioned to the parliamentarians the fact that there were, proportionally, many more foreigners in preventive detention than Portuguese. “The Portuguese courts, in a similarity between a national and a foreigner, tend to arrest more foreigners for the sake of a matter, which is the danger of escape,” he added.
He expressed the belief that legalization of immigrants is the way to avoid crime. “Emigrants, if they are inserted and have a document in the shortest possible time, will not commit crimes, because they would be destroying all the investment they have made to come to a territory that they think will be safe, where they will flee from hunger, violations, from the expected death,” he said. And it has amended that if legalized, it will be easier for immigrants to report crimes to the police.
In his speech, Neves criticized the misinformation and fake news that seek to link the increase in crime to immigration. “Who cares about this topic of fake news? It is interested in the prophets of disgrace and the creation of chaos, to jeopardize the democratic system.
The summons of Neves to parliament was made by the Liberal Initiative after the president of the party, Rui Rocha, accused the director of the PJ of having truncated the crime data in relation to immigration.