Iād be careful just assuming Portugal will continue increasing its openness to immigration. There is growing āforeigners are taking our homes, jobs, healthcareā¦ā sentiment there. So yes Chega at the extreme, but quieter resentment as well.
This arc has been followed by many countries in the pastā¦ America and the Ellis Island heyday as mentioned above. Angela Merkelās āWir schaffen dasā (āWe can do thisā) in 2015 to accept one million refugees - Germanyās not as welcoming now.
Yeah, the ~1870 period thereās a lot of horrible anti chinese sentiment in the USA, itās basically identical to modern propaganda if you swap out chinese with muslim or brazilian or whatever
Agree with all of the above.
Portugal is shedding people and aging. They need some immigration just to keep population flat.
There is some evidence that an aging population cares less about economic growth and the Portuguese economy has its (serious ) issues. As long as the volume stays somewhat manageable (and no one knows what that will be ), I would anticipate it works in our favour. Big floods will turn the tide.
It would seem that the demand is simply not there (perhaps because the jobs are not there , I donāt know ) and inefficiency of SEF/AIMA gums up the works to keep numbers manageable. . Perhaps too much AIMA efficiency would end up with a backlash
I didnāt know about the 5 years out of the last 15. Does that mean that in theory we could stop renewing our GV after applying for citizenship? Not that I would, but Iām curious about what is theoretically possible.
We donāt have our cards yet and are approaching 3 years from application. We may be able to apply for citizenship before we have to renew, and in theory we could skip the renewal?
Ok, thatās good news, I guess.
I was in the Q4 2021 pile - applied end November- and the application was validated mid September 2022. Biometrics Jan 2023, card June 2023
So at this point I am either
27 months into the 60
17 months into the 60
13 months into the 60
8 months into the 60.
Everything crossed itās 27ā¦
And I know I am one of the āquickerā ones, so appreciate the good fortune
The manifestaĆ§Ć£o de interesse doesnāt have an exact equivalent in the GV process, but itās basically the first step in the Brazilliansā process, the opening play in their game of chess with SEF. As I understand it they submit one of these and then get a response back semi-quickly that basically means, we acknowledge receipt of your application. They then wait in biometrics hell like GV applicants.
So based on this, it seems to me that the SEF response that skippy.full mentions above would be the equivalent; e.g., the response you get back from SEF after submitting your application, but before pre-approval, basically acknowledging that your application has been received with the necessary documentation submitted.
That said, remember that the GV is a different application process and we still donāt know whether the courts will ultimately find that itās the application date, this initial āapplication acknowledgedā status from SEF, or formal pre-approval, that will count under this new law.
Edit: I was just going to log into the portal at https://ari.sef.pt to show you a screenshot of what Iām talking about, but I see theyāve pulled the whole portal offline now. Not sure if a temporary server fault, or a sign of things to come?
Thanks for posting this. I tried to log in this evening too, couldnāt get in or reset my password.
The Portal I landed on from SEF.pt was an AIMA website I havenāt seen before.
Letās wait to see how it comes back.
Are you sure this is separate from pre-approval? I searched my email for āNotificaĆ§Ć£o de AceitaĆ§Ć£oā but only found the email my lawyer forwarded to me when I was pre-approved. At the time (mid 2021) that was less than 2 months after submission!
I assume nowadays (since they switched to chronological processing) they only give pre-approval when they have enough biometrics slots to make some available to you soon, which is why the pre-approval is taking so much longer.
Just wondering if anyone in this thread had already considered the following potential issue? According to the amended nationality law, in order to apply for citizenship, residency will now be counted from the date of āinitial applicationā - whatever that turns out to mean - and you can submit a citizenship application after 5 years residency provided you were eventually approved. Presumably this means that when applying for citizenship we will need to submit not only the proof of date of initial application - whether thatās the DUC analysis fee payment proof or the pre-approval email or the proof of biometrics completed - as well as some proof that we have also received final approval. Presumably this means that even if 5 years have elapsed since āinitial applicationā, you will still need to wait for your final approval before you can apply for citizenship? Does it mean that these amendments, welcome as they are, still do not help you unless and until such time as you receive final approval?
Yes, thatās been my understanding from when this first came up. Given the text of the law, thereās clearly no way that you can get citizenship before final approval. Perhaps youād be allowed to start the naturalisation process (which is a couple of years), and have the ARI final approval be one part of it. But no passport without an ARI.
It really does help and push AIMA to work. Because if they keep slacking off and delaying things, it will come to the situation that some GV holders will get their first card after 5 years waiting. Right after receiving their first card, they apply for citizenship as it is allowed by law. Itās gonna be ridiculous that someone does not spend even 1 day in the last 5 year and applies for citizenship and finally obtains it.
To avoid this kind of dilemma, AIMA needs to quickly issue the cards to every applicants. Once the applicants have the cards, they must follow the physical requirement accordingly.
Recently, one of Nomadgater has just got the first card of his wife after 4 years and 2 months. He himself is still waiting. So, I could see that he might get his card very close to 5 years mark which is a realistic scenario.
. Perhaps too much AIMA efficiency would end up with a backlash 