Why will the deportation of immigrants increase in Portugal? Euronews explains

Portugal is officially 1,546,521 immigrants. More than 100,000 have entered annually. This new population is satisfying labor needs, stimulating consumption and reinforcing social security accounts. By 2024, for example, immigrants gave a positive balance of 3.6 billion euros to social security and represented 12.4% of total contributions.

The statistics published by the Government in early April, in the report “Foreign Population in Portugal”, produced by the Integration, Migration and Asylum Agency (AIMA), realized that It can be more than 1.6 million soon. This is due to the approximately 50,000 immigrants, covered by the “transitory regime” created by the Assembly of the Republic, which was already in Portugal before June 3, 2024, and have already submitted a request for regularization of their presence.

If the forecasts are confirmed, the Therefore, the foreign population will even represent about 15% of the 10.6 million of residents registered in Portugal. It is an increase that quadruples the values ​​of 2017.

What has changed?

When the Government of the Democratic Alliance began the functions 11 months ago, there were more than 400,000 pending cases related to immigrant citizens in the national territory, inherited from the previous executive.

In June last year, the Minister of Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, created a Mission structure To give the process faster. The work, led by Luís Goes Pinheiro, began in September and already has more than 220,000 immigrants assisted throughout the territory.

This Working Group It was one of the 41 measures of the Migration Action Plan, announced on June 3 of last year. The first operation was cease the mechanism of manifestations of interestimplemented in 2017 by the government of António Costa.

The procedure allowed any foreigner to enter Portugal and request regularization in the country, provided they are registered and with a regularized situation before Social Security and through an employment contract or green receipts.

Until then, it was the most used means to remain in Portugal and designated by the current government as the cause of un controlled immigration. An evaluation report on migration management in Portugal, prepared by the Association for Futura Memory SEF (APMFSEF), indicates that, since 2017, since 2017 More than 1 million manifestations of interest in Portugal were recorded.

Since June 3, 2024, when the regime of demonstrations of interest was revoked, there was a 59% reduction in the flow of inputs in Portugal. “It was discovered that the entry flow of foreign citizens who had to obtain a residence authorization went from 156,951 in the first half of 2024 to 64,848 in the second half of 2024,” reads the Government Report in April.

The Government explains that “the flow of entries corresponds to the sum of the records of manifestation of interest in the period under analysis with the total visa of work and residence visas of all typologies.”

Since September of last year 446,921 pending interest manifestations261,101 people and 241,183 already attended in person. They did not respond to the contacts of immigrants Aima 177,026, whose processes were extinguished.

The Socialist Party (PS), which implemented this system, stopped defending it recently, with the current leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, to admit that the Costa Government did not do everything right and that the demonstration of interest was no longer a useful mechanism at this time.

Return of foreign citizens in an illegal situation

Within the reach of the more than 440,000 processes that were pending treatment, which are being instructed by the structure of the Aima Mission created for this purpose, a specific group of Aima workers that is monitoring the processes that were rejected for several reasons: having precautionary measures to have the condition was constituted by monitoring. irregular in other countries of the space of Schengen, Do not have clean criminal record either Do not present documents necessary.

Processes with a negative decision proposal, which has totaled around 18,000 so far, 4579 definitive rejection decisionswhich will be notified for the voluntary abandonment of the Portuguese territoryas required by the Portuguese law.

Of these, 3778 were rejected because they found themselves in an illegality in another Member State of the European Union. In this notification it is given a term between 10 and 20 days to leave the country. If they do not, a coercive elimination process opens.

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Of these 18,000 rejections of demonstrations of interest that generate notifications of abandonment of the national territory, 75% (13,393) are immigrants from the Indian subcontinent (Most India and Bangladesh, being the rest of Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka).

Less than 2.5%, (449) are from African countries that speak Portuguese (Palop), almost inexpressive are Mozambique and Cape Green. Already 7%, 1209, are from other African countries (not lusophones, especially Maghreb). The rest are from Latin America and Asia.

The government’s decision in the middle of the electoral campaign has been compared to Donald Trump’s policy. HE The opposition accuses the Luís Montenegro executive of “electoralism” and “propaganda” In a dispute of arrival voters, a party that has always been very vocal regarding the control of immigration in Portugal.

In its defense, the government affirms that for several years that the The European Commission has been asking Portugal to reinforce the return capacity and that “Portugal is very evaluated in this parameter, during the Schengen evaluation.”

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“When the SEF had not yet been destroyed by the PS and worked at the beginning of Antonio Costa’s period and made the exits of those who did not meet the rules, were they also deportations to Trump?” He asks the Executive in a statement, denouncing that the The Sef Banking and Banking Regime “made it almost impossible to be in a situation of irregularity And that any decision to leave became impossible to execute, since visits could always and at any time present a manifestation of interest and interrupt the elimination. ”

According to the Government, after the divestment in this matter and the extinction of SEF, the decrease in return was undeniable. “Portugal has failed to do its share in immigration policy not only in our country, but also European,” he says.

Evolution of notifications of voluntary abandonment to the number of foreign citizens in Portugal

In 2016, at the beginning of the government of António Costa, long before the extinction of SEF (which took place in 2023) and a year before the creation of the manifestation regime (2017), the registered of the registered greater number of abandonment notifications (5470) to date. This year were 400,000 foreign citizens in Portugal, a quarter of the current ones.

Since 2016, El The number of notifications has decreased year after year (With the exception of 2019), although the number of foreign citizens has been growing sharply.

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With the creation of the regime of the demonstration of interest in 2017 and, later, in 2019, with the alteration of this regime that began to give a form of regularization to foreign citizens in an illegal situation in the national territory, the number of foreign citizens residing in Portugal exponentially grew from just over 400 thousand to the current of almost 1.6 million.

However, the Return notifications were reducing: From 2019 to 2024 they were one tenth, when the number of foreigners almost tripled. In 2024 there were only 447 notifications.

“This trajectory reflects not only the irresponsible dismantling of SEF and the lack of preparation in the creation of Aima, but also the very pernicious effect of the regime of manifestation of interest,” accuses the Government of Luís Montenegro, in the statement sent to the networks of networks.

How does the deportation process in Portugal work?

In Portugal, the process of eliminating an illegal foreign citizen has several steps. First, the illegal permanence situation of a foreign citizen is detected, followed by Citizen notification due to voluntary abandonment (NAV) of the national territory within 10 and 20 days, provided for in article 138 of foreign law.

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When a citizen who incurred the voluntary elimination duty within the period defined in NAV, is arrested under the terms of article 146 of the foreign law incurred. When the judge’s presence can be determined Detention in temporary installation centers (CIT)They are used for the reception and permanence of the citizens of third countries subject to the detection procedure, as well as to the procedure of eliminating the national territory.

As a result of detention, the coercive elimination process is opened, which is instructed and decided by AITA. If you do not comply with this decision and have not submitted any appeal or asylum request that suspends the decision to eliminate, the citizen coercively takes the border, under the police escort if it seems necessary