I have two letters (6 months apart) from the Porto IRN conservador dealing with my application saying that all they are waiting for is a response from AIMA. They confirmed that all other external entities had responded. It’s been 3 weeks short of 3 years.
6 Likes
Meu Deus… 
Worst is that I now have to renew my GV again. The conservador wrote that it’s very important I tell AIMA that they’re waiting for their response in order to finalize my application. You can’t make this stuff up.
5 Likes
If you are on the fund path with multiple applicants, the fees rapidly add up. We’re trying to figure out if we go ahead (a big if), how many renewals we would conceivably be looking at. So if I am to understand, you are 3 weeks short of 3 years since you submitted your application for citizenship?
1 Like
In years past, I saw many stories about citizenship being granted for ARIs almost immediately after another round of residence card renewal, suggesting that they had a tacit policy of extracting one more round of expensive renewal fees before allowing participants to reach the finish line.
6 Likes
We entered the GV in 2014. Submitted in Feb 2023. If you look at my posts you’ll see that it’s been a messy decade - and I haven’t detailed the half of it. I’ve worked in complex law and policy spaces all my life and have never encountered the kind of govt dysfunctionality that I’ve seen and experienced here. There’s a high level skills deficit. In short, the lawyers are as questionable as the engineers and builders.
7 Likes
Thank you for your reply. I hope you get satisfaction soon. 
1 Like
Just plodding along above 6000m at this point, knowing that we’ve come too far to turn back and trusting that at some point we’ll get where we’re going. Exhausting.
2 Likes
Isn’t it possible it’s not just dysfunction but system is just designed to extract the most money possible while delaying your citizenship as much as possible (preferably indefinitely)?
4 Likes
There is an arbitrariness to the ways in which laws are made, implemented, and enforced that suggests not. The only other way I’ve seen it show up is when there is widespread corruption. That’s what shut down the SEFGV 1.0, which was reinvented as SEF 2.0, which gave way to AIMA 1.0 etc etc. They’ve never had a grip on the project. I don’t think there’s a design. There might be some side-doors, but I don’t think it’s wholesale to the extent that it’s disrupting workflows, as it does in some other countries. What I see is a basic failure to think through and cost the resource implications of laws - and then an expectation that bureaucratic systems that aren’t fit for purpose will implement them. One obvious example is offering immediate citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews, which led to a deluge of complex applications that IRN was not prepared for. I very much doubt that any research or policy planning went into this decision. Another eg is reducing the period of legal residence required for a child to be born Portuguese, which they’re now having to backtrack on. It’s hard to imagine a design that would incorporate the multiple different iterations of incompetence that my family has dealt with over the past decade. With the GV I think they opened the door with no idea of how it would play out (including, to be fair, Brexit and Trump) and we’re all dealing with the fallout. Do they care to fix it (even if they had the skills)? I think that’s where the 
version of eating the rich probably comes into play.
7 Likes
God, that’s terrible. Did it take from 2014 to Feb 2023 for you to accrue 5 years legal residency?? I read your earlier posts about losing years because lawyers screwed your process up.
To be clear, my point is a narrow legal one about whether submitting CdTs at the start is in any sense a slam dunk with IRN. AIMA doesn’t decide citizenship. IRN does. The regulations require some kind of proof of residence issued by AIMA and stop there. They don’t say that the applicant has to supply it or how IRN obtains it. Beyond that it’s a black box.
We really have little idea what form that AIMA data comes in, how IRN adjudicates it, how conflicts are handled and so on. There’s no statute or regulation or public guidance that says applicant submitted CdTs are decisive, that IRN compares CdTs with AIMA data, that IRN defaults to one calculation if there is a discrepancy, or that any of this requires any particular outcome.
I checked all that with our lawyers (and they are a big 4 firm, not a GV mill). It is not a great situation or any comfort to anyone, I know, but the point is that while we all spend countless hours running around sourcing documents, CdTs are, on balance of probabilities, not a good use of time.
1 Like
But the regs do say how IRN obtains it.
Art.19.º(2b) et al.
And so it seems that yes, CdTs supplied by the applicant are not usable.
1 Like
This is splitting hairs, but I think you’re reading a bit more into the regulations than is there. There are gaps that give IRN a lot of leeway.
Article 19(1d) sets a five year residence requirement. No argument.
Article 19(2b) says your file must include a certidão comprovativa da residência legal em território português issued by the immigration authority. A certidão is official confirmation. The regulations don’t define what form it has to take. It proves legal residence, not that nationality requirements are met as a matter of determination. That might seem like a fine distinction, but it matters for our understanding of the procedure.
Importantly, the regulations also allow IRN to obtain documents and information on their own initiative (including electronically) from other public bodies like AIMA. That power is broad.
What the regulations don’t say is the problem I’m pointing to. They don’t explain how IRN gets the data in practice, what form it takes, whether it’s a calculation or just raw dates, how conflicts are resolved, or what happens if the dates don’t line up.
The IRN “certidão” could be a CdT, a list of dates, a raw database extract, an internal status report, a structured calculation, or some combination of those. We don’t really know what kind of back-and-forth is happening behind the scenes, and none of this is spelled out in the regulations. Maybe someone here has some anecdotes from speaking to lawyers or IRN officials, but it isn’t public data.
Anyway, I know discussing what’s under the hood doesn’t fix any of it. It’s a hell of a process and they aren’t doing it fast enough for any of us. I’m just pointing out that we know very little about the mechanics of it.
Yes, it took that time to accumulate 5 years. I think they were “lost” in the 2015 SEF shutdown - we kept being assured that the delay in issuing the family’s cards was normal and that we’d all follow the primary GV holder, who’d been issued with a card in 2014. Only discovered when we finally got our 1st physical cards in 2018 that they actually were our 1st cards!
I asked the conservador about the CdT because I was worried about AIMA’s record keeping. He said they don’t look at it and the response must come from AIMA. Seems like it might be a yes/no. He told me that if AIMA says no, the applicant will be informed and have the opportunity to respond. I sent IRN a schedule of all entries/exits + passport stamps since 2014, as well as my whole SEF/AIMA history. They asked for both to be uploaded (by our lawyers) as supplementary material. I suspect it may have been to placate me, but interesting to know there’s that possibility.
One reason I think it’s a yes/no is that some time ago I saw a letter from the Porto IRN explaining to an applicant that she would have to apply for her birth certificate in a separate process because AIMA had put their response in the box that IRN completes to generate the BC and they’d not been able to resolve it!
3 Likes
I was also thinking the same and won’t be surprised to see this happening.
Today in one facebook group "AIMA e Nacionalidede Portuguese - Grupo de Apoio; one mentioned that he has been to Porto IRN, and was told that AIMA will only respond to requests if the applicant’s residence is valid.
In theory the extensions provided the expired card holders should suffice the need, but I cannot rule out that they might be waiting for the actual renewal to get approved.
As mentioned in the citizenship processing delays thread there seems to be a lot arbitrary implementations happening, e.g. existing nationality applications are stalled dramatically even though they should not be impacted by any changes in the nationality law.. Similarly, AIMA should be able to respond to IRN’s request around cdt but it seems as if it chooses not to respond.
1 Like
Mr. Leitao - the director of AIMA already said explicitly that AIMA on purpose slowed down processing GV applications for the reason of social equity. Therefore, he might speak up about the same reason - social equity - of why AIMA does not respond IRN in humanly timing manner.
3 Likes
what I cannot wrap my mind around is how this declaration can be viewed as anything other than an admission of guilt, which should, in turn, provide sufficient grounds for legal action against all involved government entities.
3 Likes
The legal system in Portugal is just as compromised and dysfunctional as SEF/AIMA. Even if you commence a legal process, chances are that the amount of time required for your eventual victory would be on par with the additional waiting time for the citizenship. The government is betting on your general unwillingness to engage in a lengthy and potentially costly legal battle.
8 Likes