The now-defunct Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) granted, in 2023 and 2024, more than 120,000 residence permits to immigrants from Portuguese-speaking countries without checking the criminal record of the country of origin, as required by law. "It was a serious mistake," says Leitão Amaro, who revoked the regime in February.
The automatic residence permit was created by the Government of António Costa in 2023 and was intended for immigrants from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP). In practice, it meant that processes that originated from expressions of interest were automatically transformed into CPLP residence permits, valid for only one year.
These candidates were granted residence permits for one year without any face-to-face assistance or manual verification of the submitted documents, such as the mandatory criminal record.
Thus, any pending expression of interest that has been submitted by CPLP citizens until the end of 2022 could be converted into a residence permit, regardless of the registration data, its veracity or even the total absence of documents.
According to the preliminary report of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), from March, “in 2023 and 2024, 120,157 processes of expressions of interest were automatically converted into CPLP residence permits. Therefore, it is appropriate to count these processes as expressions of interest”.
The current government ended the automatic regime for the CPLP in February of this year. In the decree that ends the automatic concession, the ministers of the Presidency, Justice and Internal Administration write that the model “does not provide for essential security elements for this type of documentation” and granted authorizations “without prior verification of identity”. They therefore determine the “verification of criminal records in the countries of origin” of the 120,157 immigrants who will be notified by AIMA.
Detected crimes from here
A source close to the process confirmed that granting residency to CPLP citizens automatically checked the national security database, which shows crimes committed in Portugal and international alerts such as those from Europol or Interpol. However, it did not detect whether the candidates committed crimes in their country of origin, as stated in law 23/2007. The same source adds that the model was based on an opinion from the SEF legal office.
In art. 77th, law 23/2007 states that in order to be granted residence, it is mandatory, among other factors, the “absence of conviction for a crime that in Portugal is punishable by a custodial sentence of more than one year”.
Speaking to mediamen, the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, stated that “this is yet another serious failure by the PS Government in terms of its lack of control over immigration”. When the flaw was detected, he adds, “guidance was given to services so that when renewing and replacing CPLP titles, criminal records from the country of origin would be required”.
Blank sheets
The analysis carried out by AIMA on some applications for obtaining residence permits found blank pages in place of the criminal records that should have been submitted by applicants. The same analysis by AIMA also detected false documents in place of the criminal record. Some were more elaborate, but others did not even resemble official documents.
The CPLP includes Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor. There are 1.5 million foreign citizens residing in Portugal, according to AIMA. There are still 50 thousand who already work under a transitional regime