How did Portugal become a Plan B for refugees?

Protests demanding higher wages in Portugal (Reuters)

Portugal is no longer just a favorite destination for retirees in Western European countries, due to its warm climate, sunny beaches, and cheap cost of living, but moreover, within a decade, it has transformed into an advanced destination for immigrants seeking stability and permanent residence away from the restrictions and bureaucratic complexities of traditional immigration countries such as Germany and France. And Britain.

The young Tunisian Ahmed Bouhamid did not think of landing in Portugal. His first destination, like most Tunisians’, was Italy. However, with the decline in legal residency opportunities and the increase in systematic deportations pursued by the authorities there, Buhamid Ahmed moved with a Schengen visa to Portugal, and there he began working as a sales consultant. Remotely with a British company.

Like Ahmed, thousands made their way to the Iberian country coming from Africa, South America, and Asia, in addition to North African and Middle Eastern migrants, either on tourist visas or through human smugglers.

Portugal has become, more than ever before, a Plan B for many migrants, including irregular ones, who are stranded in the Nordic countries due to restrictions on residency requirements.

Buhumaid points out - in his interview with Al Jazeera Net - that Portugal provides skilled people and immigrants with administrative facilities for residence and work.

Legal residence

Although the average salary, which sometimes reaches 1,500 euros, is lower than what traditional immigration countries offer, it nevertheless paves the way for legal residence within the European Union space, and this is an advantage that has made a decisive difference for immigrants.

This was not the case years ago, even at the height of the large influx of migrants into European Union countries between 2015 and 2017. Although the country announced its readiness at the time to receive numbers of migrants stranded on European borders and asylum seekers, most of them chose to head to the rich Nordic countries.

Portugal had to provide greater incentives from that time to become a magnet for migrants, and the head of the Refugee Council in Portugal, Teresa Tito Moraes, commented at that time by saying that Portugal must introduce itself to migrants arriving in Europe.

Demographic and economic drivers

Returning to the fundamental reasons, during the second decade of the millennium, the dual demographic and economic crises prompted the government to introduce flexible policies to facilitate the arrival of immigrants and compensate thousands of those who left.

The aim of this was to revive the faltering economy and contain the effects of the financial crisis that struck Portugal, which deepened unemployment among young people, causing an intense wave of migration that affected more than 300,000 Portuguese in the period between 2011 and 2013.

In addition, Portugal suffers from a low birth rate, as it is the lowest among the European Union countries, and the National Institute of Statistics has warned that if this situation continues, the country will be at risk of losing 20% ​​of its population by 2060.

In order to enhance the policy of openness, the government amended the immigration law in 2020 by automatically granting citizenship to children born to immigrant parents, regardless of the period of residence in the country.

In the same year, the government also issued a historic decision to regularize the status of thousands of irregular immigrants at once, especially those working in the agricultural and construction sectors.

Between 2020 and 2022, the government committed to coordinating with the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to receive shares of refugees crowded into asylum centers in Europe.

Colonial refugees

Portugal is traditionally a first destination for immigrants coming from its colonies such as Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau.

In March 2023, the local newspaper "Visao" estimated the number of Brazilians alone at more than 300,000, which is equivalent to about a third of foreign immigrants in the country, which number more than a million.

But the policy of openness increasingly included other nationalities, including the countries of the Maghreb region, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

Compared to the policies of the rest of Western European countries, Portugal will remain an exception if the upcoming March elections in 2024 do not lead to any new changes.

Ramadan Ben Omar, an expert on immigration issues and member of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, says that European countries, under pressure from increasingly influential right-wing parties, are aware of the demographic crisis, but this is not reflected in their immigration policies.

Ben Ramadan adds to Al Jazeera Net that European countries adopt selective and comprehensive policies reminiscent of their past in coal mines, and they refuse to bear the economic burdens resulting from immigration.

Antonio Costa is seen as the actual architect of the open-door immigration policy (Reuters)

Costa is the architect of openness

The Golden Visa program established by the government in 2012 was one of the ambitious projects to facilitate the arrival of capital and talent to Portugal in exchange for numerous benefits such as enjoyment of permanent residence, granting citizenship after 5 years of legal residence, and enjoyment of social and tax rights.

Antonio Costa, the resigned Prime Minister and former Mayor of Lisbon, is seen as the actual architect of the open-door immigration policy adopted by the ruling Socialist Party, in an effort to bridge the demographic imbalance and fill the labor shortage.

Before his rise to power, Costa strongly focused on the demographic issue in his political program in the 2019 elections, as the state developed plans to attract at least 75,000 new residents annually to maintain a stable, active population in addition to simplifying work and investment procedures in the country.

In October 2023, the Portuguese government took an additional step to reassure arrivals by launching a special department to speed up the examination of thousands of arriving migrants’ files with the aim of developing services and reviewing border control procedures.

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Caterina Mendes, who oversees the new immigration policy, told El Publico newspaper that the aim of this step is to “reduce bureaucracy and provide serious services to immigrants who have chosen to live in Portugal.”

European coercions

But it is not clear to what extent this policy will last after the resignation of Costa, one of the few socialists who led a European government, and all attention will be directed to his successor, Pedro Nuno Santos, who won the position of Secretary-General of the Socialist Party, as he is expected to be its candidate in the elections next March.

In his interview with Al Jazeera Net, expert Ramadan Ben Omar does not rule out that Portugal’s policies that are open to immigration are circumstantial, especially with the increase in pressure from the right-wing front in the European Union institutions, adding, “Portugal will not be spared from European pressures and coercions, and they will eventually push it to adopt the general policies of the right.” "European".

For his part, Ahmed Al-Sheikh, a political analyst and director of the Arab Center for Western Studies in Paris, told Al Jazeera Net, “The situation in France is different from Germany, where the extreme right lost the results of an electoral battle. The situation is also different from what is happening in Portugal, and the matter is ultimately up to the course of the conflict and the extent of the success of the forces.” Democracy with humanitarian and civilizational orientations can stop the process of isolation led by the extreme populist right in more than one European country.

In his analysis, Al-Sheikh expects that “the sensible children of immigrants will have an effective role in this battle through civilizational understanding with the humanly advanced forces within these European societies that seek to change their societies and save them from the brutality and obscurantism of the populist extreme right.”

Commitment hides a contradiction

However, the Portuguese government's commitment hides contradictory pictures on the ground, as Portugal faces accusations of widespread networks of immigrant exploitation and human smuggling.

In its report on the rights of refugees and migrants entitled “2022 and 2023”, Amnesty International highlighted “abusive working conditions and inadequate housing” for Asian migrants working in the agricultural sector in several towns.

Human rights reports estimate the number of these workers on farms and fields throughout the country and at the mercy of human traffickers at more than 35,000 people, as they are forced to work daily for up to 12 hours without stopping for low wages.

The policy of welcoming immigrants was not accompanied by solutions to the escalating housing crisis and rising rents caused by the boom in foreign investments in the real estate sector and the recovery of tourism.

Although the golden visa system contributed to reviving investments related to the real estate sector by providing about 7.3 billion euros to state coffers between 2013 and 2023, according to the Immigration and Borders Department, it caused a major disruption in housing, and its impact severely affected indigenous people and immigrants alike.

Amnesty International says, "The government has not taken sufficient measures to improve housing conditions and ensure sufficient affordable housing, despite data released at the end of 2021, showing that more than 38,000 people are in need of a home."

The organization noted reports of "forced evictions that pushed some people onto the streets, disproportionately affecting Roma and people of African descent."

Source: Al Jazeera