The new year will begin with uncertainty in the area of immigration and the same problems as 2023
From the Alentejo to the north of Portugal, foreign workers face similar difficulties, with more serious problems in some areas requiring specific responses from the authorities.
The concerns of associations, researchers and authorities reflect the reality on the ground today in the area of immigration. From the north to the south of the country, foreigners are feeling the challenges that appear in studies and in pre-election campaign political speeches. Some of the problems are common to all, as DN has seen in the various reports it has carried out on the subject: delays in obtaining documents, being “stuck” in the country, constraints on access to housing, the impossibility of reuniting the family due to a lack of places for reunification, for example. It seems that these are problems that will continue to occur and accumulate in 2024, because immigrants are constantly arriving.
In addition to the difficulties that unite most of the migrant community, there are specific issues that vary according to nationality and the region they choose to live in Portugal. This is an additional challenge for the authorities, who have to tailor their responses to the needs that arise.
In the Alentejo, the mafias that exploit immigrant workers are a reality. This is the starting point for a life far from home of misery, hunger, abusive working hours – even slavery-like conditions, with physical violence and withholding of wages, justified as payment of a debt for the journey to Portugal and precarious accommodation. In Beja and Odemira, for example, you only have to go out onto the streets to see the workers living in these conditions, many without access to housing and living on the streets or in unoccupied buildings with health risks and without access to basic human rights, as DN showed in its December 23 edition.
In the coming year, there are no indications that the situation will change. In the last mega-operation, carried out last November, Manuela Santos, director of the National Counterterrorism Unit (UNCT), acknowledged that the crime of which immigrant workers are victims “can be mitigated, but it will hardly end”.
In Lisbon, where most of the country’s foreigners are concentrated, there are also exhausting working hours in areas such as catering, with low salaries and precarious jobs with green receipts. The consequence is overcrowding in homes due to the impossibility of renting better housing and the risk of social exclusion. At the same time, according to the Immigration in Figures 2023 report, the service sector would “collapse” without the work of immigrants. They are Brazilians, Indonesians, Angolans and people from other parts of the world who help to turn the work machine in the capital.
In the center and north of the country, the situation is similar, especially with regard to housing and job insecurity. According to DN on December 22, more and more Brazilians, Argentinians, Colombians and North Africans are seeking help because they are homeless in Braga, known for being one of the favorite destinations for Brazilian citizens moving to Portugal.
Reports of xenophobia, especially against Brazilians, are growing in all parts of the country. The reports go viral on social media with videos and are backed up with statistics. According to the Annual Report on the Situation of Racial and Ethnic Equality and Non-Discrimination, 34% of complaints come from Brazilian citizens. The issue is being used in the upcoming electoral race and is also the target of populism.
Adding to the problems is the uncertainty of the laws. At the end of November, the Council of Ministers approved the regulatory decree on the “entry, stay, exit and removal of foreign citizens”. Behind the bureaucratic name are important decisions – as yet undisclosed – about the future of immigrants in the country, especially about the renewal of residence permits, the document that allows citizens to be in the country and what, in fact, CPLP residence allows, such as travel through the Schengen Area and family reunification. Contacted by DN, the office of the Presidency of the Republic said that the document was received in Belém yesterday. The deadline for consideration is 40 days.