Ombudsman, Lúcia Amaral, warned of “a serious problem” related to the support and assistance to foreign citizens who come to Portugal without speaking the language.
“The delay that is being felt in regularisation is very long,” said Lúcia Amaral who added that the country is facing a new phenomenon with migratory flows and is receiving citizens from countries that were not part of traditional immigration, namely from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
“These are people who will present a complaint to the Ombudsman because they do not speak Portuguese and cannot ask for help by e-mail or by telephone”, she said, adding that many of these people have children.
Portugal, she said, is receiving immigrants who come to work and also citizens who ask for protection as soon as they cross the border, far more than previously experienced.
Lúcia Amaral stressed that at this moment there is “a serious problem” due to the “delays in the regularisation” of immigrants and the problem is becoming “very intense”.
“I see it every day,” she lamented, listing the difficulties of a face-to-face visit to the guardian service. “They go after having confronted all the other state services without being able to see their situation regularised,” she said.
The provider cited attendance at the Social Security and Aliens and Borders Service as critical points in the process of documenting immigrants and also the conditions of the international airport zone, where people are detained when they irregularly enter the country, sometimes with children.
“Under the law, they have to be detained for a few days before their situation is resolved. Some of these people come with children and the international airport area is completely unsuitable for keeping children there,” she said.
The latest statistics from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) have shown that the number of immigrants in Portugal increased in 2018, with estimates indicating that 43,170 people have entered the territory to live in the country, 6,531 more than in the previous year.
Demographic statistics for 2018, published in the INE report, indicate that 53 percent of the total of these permanent immigrants are female and 47 percent are male.
“Of the total permanent immigrants, 20,415 were of Portuguese nationality (about 47 percent) and 22,755 of foreign nationality. Of these, 8,092 were nationals from another European Union (EU) country and 14,663 from a third country, thus significantly increasing the latter type of immigrants,” according to INE data.
As for the country of birth, according to the data, of the 43,170 immigrants estimated to have entered Portugal in 2018, about 34 percent were born in Portugal, 18 percent in another EU country and 48 percent in a third country.
Regarding the country of previous residence, an estimated 18,375 immigrants originate from an EU country and 24,785 from third countries: Brazil (24 percent), France (13 percent), United Kingdom (13 percent), Angola (8 percent) and Switzerland (5 percent) were the top five countries of previous residence.
In 2013, 13.6 percent of permanent immigrants were between 0 and 14 years old (young), 81.3 percent between 15 and 64 years old (working age) and 5.1 percent were 65 or more years old (elderly).
In 2018, compared with 2013 and in relative terms, there was a decrease in the young population, an increase in the working age population and the maintenance of the older population: 12.2 percent young, 82.6 percent of people in active age and 5.2 percent of the elderly.
According to the statistical information provided by the Aliens and Borders Service (SEF), in 2018, 93,154 residence permits were granted to foreigners, 49,590 males and 43,564 females, a significant increase over the previous year (+52, 1 percent).
The largest volume of residence permits was, as has been happening since 2013, of Brazilian nationals (28,210), with a relative weight of 30.3 percent in their total.
According to INE data, in 2018 there were 477,472 foreign residents with resident status (236,233 men and 241,239 women), a growth of 14.6 percent compared to 2017 and the highest since 2013.
The positioning of Brazilian and Cape Verdean nationalities has remained unchanged since 2013: Brazil the most represented (104,504 in 2018) and Cape Verde in second position (34,444 in 2018).
In 2018, 34,633 visas were also granted at Portuguese consular posts: 14,258 for temporary stay and 20,375 for residence.