Lisbon
The automatic residence permit system in Portugal for citizens of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) received 85,700 applications in the first week of operation.
Most of the cases relate to the regularization of foreigners who came to the country as tourists but remained without proper papers to live and work. By last Tuesday (21st), the platform had already validated 74,725 requests.
Brazilians are undoubtedly the most favored nationality, accounting for 89.4% of the applications made. As a result, more than 66,000 Brazilian citizens have already received the document, which is initially valid for one year and costs €15 (about R$84.9) at issuance.
Angolans are a distant second with 2.9% of enquiries, closely followed by Cape Verdeans with 2.6%. Next come citizens of GuineaBissau (2.2%), São Tomé and Príncipe (1.9%), Mozambique (0.7%) and East Timor (0.4%). So far there have been no orders from Equatorial Guinea.
The automatic residence permit for people from Portuguesespeaking countries, which initially only covers those who have entered the regularization process by 2022, is part of a broader effort to reform the Portuguese migration system, which is increasingly dependent on foreigners in economic and demographic terms.
Although Portugal was already one of the few countries in the European Union to allow the regularization of foreigners without residence or work visas the main immigration route for Brazilians the process has been slow. With the increased demand, the cases at the SEF (foreigners and border service) dragged on for more than two years.
The country has no tradition of deporting immigrants, but undocumented aliens face a number of difficulties, such as restrictions on social assistance and some public health services, in addition to being more vulnerable to exploitation in the labor market.
“I’ve been waiting for the SEF interview for over a year and nothing, no prediction as to when it would happen. In the meantime, I got pregnant and didn’t get all the allowances because I didn’t have a residency permit,” says Minas Gerais beautician Kelly Souza, 29, who joined the automated platform. “I have the feeling that my life is finally moving forward because the bureaucracy is very large here.”
When the program started on the 13th, the system even went offline and showed instabilities due to the many simultaneous accesses.
In the evaluation of the president of Casa do Brasil in Lisbon, an association that supports Brazilians in Portugal, the measure is very positive for all citizens of Portuguesespeaking countries, but migrant communities still have many uncertainties about how it works.
“The process has raised many doubts among immigrants, who wanted to know if the new permit confers the same rights as the others, such as 90 days of freedom of movement in the Schengen area [área de circulação comum europeia]says Cyntia de Paula.
“And the answer is yes. This residence permit has all the rights of the others,” she clarifies, who has legal counsel to help with the regularization procedures.
One of the main points of hesitation about the new modality is the presentation of the document itself. Unlike the traditional residence permit, which is a plastic card with a photo, the CPLP permit is a sheet of paper on which the foreigner’s information is printed on it.
There have been several posts on social networks and in Brazilian groups with misinformation on the subject, including calls on Brazilians not to submit their requests through the platform.
The President of Casa do Brasil recognizes that community, public sector and even employer awareness raising about the new document will continue to be needed. “It will take some time for employers and services to know that this certificate [da CPLP]together with the passport has the same validity as the residence card,” he says.
A joint communication from the Ministries of Internal Administration, Parliamentary Affairs and Administrative Digitization and Modernization encourages migrants with pending cases to join the platform.
“This is an agile and efficient process that must be used by the citizens of CPLP countries to give them access to rights in very relevant areas such as education, health, safety, employment, training and justice,” it says in the text.
According to the government, the new residence permit system maintains the same security standards as the previous one. Concern about issuing documents to international refugees was even mentioned by some critics of the model.
“The security levels remain unchanged, 4,369 security consultations were carried out before the issuance of residence permits due to warnings in the first analysis.”
With the new contingent of legalized migrants added to the beneficiaries of new work visas, also reserved exclusively for CPLP citizens, the number of Brazilians legally residing in Portugal already exceeds 300,000. After a few years of decline, the Brazilian community has continued to grow uninterruptedly since 2017.
Despite the simplifications implemented from a bureaucratic point of view, foreigners are facing increasing economic difficulties in staying in the country. In a scenario of record inflation and a general increase in the cost of living, especially real estate prices, many immigrants find themselves in a situation of social vulnerability.
The situation is more difficult for those who have just arrived in Europe. Data from IOM, the UN organization for migration, shows that the number of Brazilians asking for help returning from Portugal skyrocketed in 2022, with many of them being newcomers to the country. Of the 1,051 who signed up for the institution’s voluntary return program last year, 913 were Brazilian.