Portugal will also guarantee access to Portuguese nationality for children of foreigners who are illegally staying in the country.
The automatic right to citizenship was extended to all children born in Portuguese territory to foreigners residing in the country for at least one year — the benefit will not depend on the migratory status of the parents.
Until now, in order for babies to have the right to nationality, a minimum of one year of legal residence by one of the parents was required. The change was instituted in a new decree, published on Friday (18), and takes effect on April 15.
“It’s a huge change, something that will greatly benefit the families that live here and the generations that will be born”, evaluates the lawyer Raphaela Souza, a specialist in Portuguese nationality and a partner at the consultancy Portugal for All. “The change is also a way for the government itself to recognize that some regularization processes take much longer than they were supposed to.”
Although Portugal allows the regularization of foreigners who entered the country as tourists and remained without proper authorization to live and work, the process is considered bureaucratic and increasingly slow.
Overcrowded and on the verge of extinction to make way for a new agency, the SEF (Foreigners and Borders Service) has taken at least two years to complete the processes of regularization through work.
Still, this is traditionally the main form of immigration of the Brazilian community in the country, which in 2021 reached a record number of 209,072 people.
Portugal, which has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, has been promoting immigration and expanding access to citizenship in recent years. For almost a decade, there are already more “new Portuguese” through nationality concessions than through birth.
The right to Portuguese nationality for children born in the country has been progressively expanded.
In 2015, at least five years of legal residence was required from one parent. In 2018, the minimum term dropped to two years and, in 2020, to one year.
“This new regulation cements the changes that were already taking place in the nationality law. The criteria have been simplified, now the place where the person is born matters more than the blood ties that the person has”, evaluates Raquel Brito, from Abreu Advogados. .
The new regulation also facilitates access to Portuguese nationality for parents of babies born in Portugal. Foreigners who have children with original Portuguese citizenship may apply for naturalization after five years of residence, whether regular or not, in Portuguese territory.
The country already allowed naturalization by length of residence, but with a fundamental difference: only the period with legal authorization to reside in the country could be considered in the counting of the application for nationality.
Children born before this new change will also benefit.
For lawyer Raquel Brito, the regulation increases legal certainty for points that were not clear in the nationality law. “It made everything clearer. Before, we used to interpret in our own way what was in the law, we were not very sure about what the conservatories [cartórios que cuidam das nacionalidades] would.”
Despite expanding the right to nationality for children born in Portugal, the new regulation introduces requirements that will make it difficult to grant Portuguese nationality to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled during the Inquisition.
In addition to the official certification of Sephardic descent, the government will require, as of September, proof of effective connection to the country, such as frequent trips to the country and properties inherited in Portuguese territory.
“These are demands that distort the spirit of the law, which was created as a form of historical reparation. How can descendants of a community expelled from Portugal more than five centuries ago be required to have an effective connection to the country today?”, asks Raphaela. Souza.
“They introduced objective requirements with absolutely subjective criteria. The regulation speaks of ‘regular trips to Portugal’, but does not establish how many.”
For Raquel Brito, the changes will drastically reduce naturalizations through the Sephardic route. “There are some customers who ask if we can build this connection with Portugal from now on, but the answer is no. It has to be a connection that already exists”, she says.
The proposal to introduce stricter criteria was already being discussed in the country, but it gained strength in recent months, when it was revealed that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea, obtained the Portuguese passport through the mechanism under suspicion of irregularities.
Since 2015, Portugal has granted citizenship to 56,685 descendants of Sephardic Jews. Although the government agency responsible for the issue has not yet disclosed the division by nationality, there are thousands of Brazilians among those benefited.
