The economic and housing crises in Portugal provide fuel for right-wing anti-migrant rhetoric, while property speculators try every means to get hold of land whose value is increasing as a result. Proposed changes to migration law have led to protests by the Brazilian Government.
Graham Douglas
The right-wing party Chega became the official opposition after this year’s Portuguese parliamentary elections so there was a lot of anxiety about Sunday’s local elections, but Chega ended in third place overall, although with more votes than in 2021.
People are tired of the corruption and inactivity of the two main parties and are being led to blame migrants for everything that is not working.
A crisis erupted in the immigration agencies after a Ukrainian who arrived at Lisbon airport without a valid visa was beaten to death by border guards in 2020.
It was decided to split the existing service (SEF) into two separate agencies one for immigration (AIMA), and border controls transferred to the existing polices forces, but since then due in part to resistance from the SEF staff, the system has become paralysed to the extent that there are over 400,000 applications for residence in the pipeline and recently Judges complained that people are turning to lawyers to speed up their cases, doing the work that AIMA is not doing and blocking other pending cases.
This is happening at the same time as far-reaching changes to immigration law are being debated, which involve key changes to rights to bring family members, applications for residence are severely limited to highly qualified people, despite the continuing need for migrants to work in low-paid jobs which do not appeal to Portuguese people. In August the proposals were thrown out by the Constitutional Court but have now been approved in a slightly moderated form by parliament.
There is an impact both on prospective migrants and some of those who are already here, and the Brazilian government has protested and talked about introducing similar restrictions.
They have placed warnings on their Consulate Instagram page, explained in this video.
It’s clear from all this that this is a crisis time for migrants in Portugal, and there is a further factor – the housing crisis, the result of decades of government inaction in the face of property speculation and touristification is being blamed on migrants. In comparison, the Netherlands are heeding the UN analysis that migrants are not the cause and that the problem is the “lack of enforceable legal recognition of the right to adequate housing”, while today even the EU seems to be waking up. I spoke to Jakilson Pereira the manager of the Moinho do Juventude, which featured in The Prisma recently, about how these things are impacting on Cova da Moura.
I read that a Brazilian mother was expelled by the PSP recently against the existing laws, but I haven’t heard about any court case against the officers.
It won’t happen, because this wasn’t an isolated action by an officer who wasn’t following procedures, it’s a deliberate policy that’s being implemented in Portugal against immigrants, and the political discourse of hate, that allows any citizen to think they have the right to do what they like against immigrants. And it’s happening in all the public services.
Everything that doesn’t work properly is being blamed on immigrants.
In the last parliamentary elections, the coalition that won began their campaign by calling for 40,000 immigrants to be expelled, even though the election wasn’t about migration.
There is a latent and vicious hatred of immigrants now, and the present government announced restrictions to the processes of requesting a visa and the right to family reunification, in contradiction to EU Directives and several existing Laws in Portugal. By using migrants as a scapegoat, they save themselves the trouble of seriously tackling the problems that Portugal faces.
Many of the elites are using migrants as cheap labour, so if their situation is regularized it will be more difficult to exploit them because a legal migrant won’t accept it. They want to create a bubble of migrants in an illegal situation to make it easier. And we can see that the people funding these parties come from regions where there are more immigrants.
These interests are mobilized through business owners complaining about the need for documents, but the point is that a migrant working legally also has to pay taxes, which benefits the State and hence social services for everyone. But the immigrant who is being paid €500 instead of €800 also has no access to social services.
I was shocked by the speech of the PSD candidate in next month’s local elections, Susana Garcia, saying that the whole of Cova da Moura should be ‘erradicated’, like Trump talking about Gaza.
I’ve written an article about this, pointing out that the PSD and CDS are the parties that maintain power at the local Council, after people voted for the Partido Socialista for 28 years. She was just surfing on this wave of racism and xenophobia, to put Cova da Moura in the spotlight to try to win the election because she knows that the electorate is full of racists. When you pass the roundabout here you see a poster saying that houses here are cheap and not fit to live in, and Garcia talks about a lot of illegal things going on here.
She isn’t representing the power of the people but wants to use a public position to advance private interests with property speculation.
I heard that the land here is still owned by a Portuguese family but that they can’t evict you because of the ‘usocapião’.
We recently published a viability study for Cova da Moura financed by the REARC Institute in Denmark in 2004, which sets out clear solutions for the status of Cova da Moura. Recently the current President of the Amadora Council told the Expresso newspaper that the Canas family are willing to reach a negotiated settlement for €14 million, and we want to resolve the problem once and for all. The details are all in the Report.
On your website that you have a long list of supporters. Will their influence guarantee survival?
The continuation of the bairro was guaranteed by the Council of Ministers in 2004. Lisbon Council cannot act here because this is within the Council of Amadora, but they don’t have enough funds, so the solution will have to be at Government Level.
How do you see the influence of Chega in the local elections?
It’s the same Portuguese elite that want to stay in power. Chega comes with easy solutions that are accepted by the ordinary person who doesn’t understand how politics works. They shout about getting rid of corruption, but they are financed by a corrupt elite who remain hidden, because if people understood what they really want no-one would vote for them. A lot of people want to know what is wrong with Portugal, and Chega has an easy answer – too many immigrants.
Last week Ventura had a meeting arranged by TVI with Gouveia e Melo one of the candidates for President of the Republic in 2026. Chega used to say that he was one of the most corrupt people, but now they are taking his advice behind the scenes.
Chega doesn’t name names they just talk about corruption in the abstract. They are a party of vigilantes, who encourage the ordinary citizen to take the law into their own hands ignoring the separation of powers- let’s expel all the immigrants, let’s castrate paedofiles.
People have felt abandoned by politicians since the PS was in power, so they listen to Ventura who promises salvation.
What about the Portuguese media?
They are involved in this too – Andre Ventura has been on TV more often than if he were Cristiano Ronaldo.
The media have always been chronically racist. Then the media people from the PSD come and say “Ah well these things exist but not the way Chega says”.
So, Chega says absurd things and then we all discuss the absurdities.
And in social media people begin to behave in degrading ways,that undermine democracy and social relations.
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