Portugal News

The idea is simple: negotiate a referendum on immigration with a possible approval of the State Budget proposal for 2025, the most critical moment for Luís Montenegro's Government, which will have a decisive phase in testing its durability.

This simple idea came from Chega and André Ventura, who decided to launch this proposal, even knowing that it has to go through the President of the Republic and the Constitutional Court, two bodies that, for Miguel Sousa Tavares, will never approve such a measure.

The president of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) announced today that from October more vacancies will be opened for family reunification processes, seeking to accelerate the integration of regularized immigrants.

“We are now going to enter this month of October with a great acceleration in relation to family reunification processes”, said Pedro Portugal Gaspar, in an interview with Lusa.

The IRN states that "online monitoring of the stages of the nationality process" will continue to exist on the new platform, "with greater transparency and clarity", but does not provide details.

Foreigners are becoming increasingly important for the sustainability of the system. Contribution amounts have doubled in four years. Citizens from Nepal, India and Bangladesh receive 30% less than Portuguese citizens.

Municipalities with a higher proportion of immigrants have lower crime rates
Odemira, where almost half of the population is foreign, has a lower crime rate per inhabitant than Lisbon. A sociologist warns that what has increased is crime against immigrants.

Sunday marks the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees and Chega has called for a protest on the same day against what it calls “uncontrolled immigration in Portugal”

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.