The head of state made the announcement during a visit to the New York Centre for Jewish History, where he met several elderly people who Sousa Mendes saved by issuing them with visas when they were fleeing the Nazis.

During the Second World War, Aristides de Sousa Mendes saved thousands of Jews and other refugees from Nazi Germany, by providing them with visas without authorisation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Sousa Mendes was in 1986 given the posthumous award of Officer of the order, but the current President has taken the view that the higher decoration of the same order is justified.