Government reveals details of immigration crackdown // Far-right attacks actor and volunteers // Subsidies over rent control to fight housing crisis

Portuguese news in English on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.

I’ll be away on holiday next week but Portugal Weekly will return on July 1 with all the latest news.

Government reveals details of immigration crackdown

The government has made its intention to crack down on immigration official, Público reports. The Social Democratic Party’s (PSD) governing platform, introduced to parliament on Saturday, outlines nine ways Prime Minister Luís Montenegro wants to target immigration. They include the doubling of the time it takes a foreigner to become a Portuguese citizen from five to 10 years, restricting family reunion visas, limiting of looking-for-work visas to “qualified people” and the creation of a police division called the National Foreigners and Borders Unit (UNEF), which has been described as a “mini-SEF”. The government also wants to create a new system to quickly deport undocumented foreigners, make employers or education institutions responsible for immigrants and do more to fight illegal immigration and human trafficking. It also intends to reinforce integration initiatives to avoid the creation of closed groups that “don’t accept Portuguese constitutional principles”.

The government pointed to the increase in the number of foreigners living in Portugal from 4% in 2017 to about 15%, or 1.6 million people, in 2024, calling it “one of the biggest demographic shocks in its history”. Lawyer Catarina Zuccaro said there were legal risks among the plans, particularly regarding the restrictions on family reunion, which could spark lawsuits based on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Photo: República Portuguesa.

Before the government’s program was presented to parliament, more than 160 organisations and individuals signed a letter in defence of family reunion visas, Público reports. That was in response to a petition with more than 60,000 signatures calling for the visa pathway to be suspended for eight years to the supposed risk of “compromising the social, cultural and economic balance of the country. Ana Paula Costa of Casa do Brasil told Público any attempt to suspend the right would be “unacceptable”. She said it would be “clearly” a violation of a European directive and risk stopping relatives, including children and partners, from being together. The country’s largest immigrant group last week protested outside the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) in Lisbon, accusing the government of ceding to the far-right Chega, Público reports. Solidariedade Imigrante leader Timóteo Macedo said family reunion was necessary in part because immigrants cut off from their family would cram together in poor housing to send money home to their families.

The government’s program — which will be debated in parliament this week but looks certain to pass — lays out the government’s general plans for the four-year term rather than bringing in specific legal changes by itself. It also proposes limiting visa renewals to foreigners who’ve shown progress in learning Portuguese, Público reports. I’m focusing on immigration here but other proposed measures include changes to social subsidies and to workers’ rights when it comes to striking. Another element is opening the door to allowing workers to buy annual leave, along with other labor law relaxations. It contains 80 measures from other parties, more from Chega than the Socialist Party, Público reports.

Separately, the government is set to announce AIMA will create a taskforce to manage the replacement of expired documents, Público reports. It’s also understood to be planning to again extend a law decreeing documents expired after a certain date are still considered valid but neither move has been made official yet.