Portugal News

PSP to have national unit for foreigners and borders

The Government will start collecting biometric and personal data from citizens who, coming from outside the European free movement area — the so-called Schengen area — enter the national territory via land borders. "This is a fundamental element to have adequate information for monitoring and to guarantee the regularity of entry into Portugal", said the Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, António Leitão Amaro, after the Council of Ministers this Thursday.

Lisbon, 25 September 2024 (Ecclesia): Pedro Vaz Patto, president of Portugal’s National Justice and Peace Commission (CNJP), emphasized that political proposals on immigration must reject any association between immigrants and crime, as this connection lacks scientific basis. 

Remotely, these professionals intend to instruct processes for granting residence permits or renewing residence permits for migrants.

In response to the Government's appeal, hundreds of lawyers and solicitors have already signed up to help resolve the 400,000 pending immigration cases.

They will earn seven and a half euros per case, but the president of the bar association says that the important thing is not the money.

Both in the scenario of an agreement to make the State Budget viable and in another in which the Government and the PS do not understand each other, with the risk of a political crisis, analysts see the leaders trying to justify themselves to voters.

Madeiran Leader Highlights Immigrants’ Crucial Role in Reversing Demographic Decline and Supporting Economic Growth

In June, the Government changed the law on foreigners and, among other measures, eliminated the expression of interest, a legal resource that allowed immigrants who had arrived in the country with a tourist visa to legalize their status in Portugal.

The coordinator of the Left Bloc, Mariana Mortágua has 

The PCP Parliamentary Group has presented a bill, proposing the “legal reinstatement of residence authorization procedures based on expressions of interest for the exercise of a subordinate or independent professional activity”.

The PCP considers the impact of the Government's decision to revoke the "possibility of obtaining a residence permit to work in Portugal through expressions of interest" to be negative.

AIMA says that the end of expressions of interest allowed the evaluation of pending processes
Pedro Portugal Gaspar says that it was necessary to “suspend this type of resource” in order to then “make an assessment and resolve the liabilities”. But Portugal still needs immigrants.

The president of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) said this Tuesday that the end of expressions of interest made it possible to resolve pending regularization processes, before finding other solutions that respond to the needs of the labor market

The Church body recognizes that the ideal would be not to have to emigrate “to overcome poverty”, but considers it a “reason for patriotic pride” that there are immigrants who want to live in Portugal, and a “reason for shame” that there are those who feel “hostilized” here.

According to the data released by Aima, the number of foreigners in Portugal has increased to one million. According to the report, in the last year 2023, the number of immigrants has increased by 33.6% compared to 2022. The largest number of immigrants living in Portugal are Brazilians.