Putting aside our own interests for a moment, this is the perfect indictment of the right wing’s refusal to include transitional measures in the new law.
Most of the people the right wing most wants to remove, i.e. low-income immigrants from developing countries, are likely locked into Portugal already if they have managed to survive the
's attempts to remove them since Manifestaçao. Five years or ten, they will stay and eventually become citizens. Lack of transitional period accomplishes nothing except delaying the inevitable.
Meanwhile, even the most optimistic investors and professionals who came on GV or D7 now realize they’ve been conned. Some will give up and leave straightaway, while many will clog up the legal system for years with cases that contribute nothing to the average Portuguese and never needed to exist had the state not decided to screw over investors.
Even if investors and professionals succeed in obtaining citizenship after suffering years of lies, abuse, and dysfunction, except for the ones who have no choice but to stay, they will likely never invest in Portugal or contribute to its economy again.
Spite is not an effective basis for public policy decisions, and when it becomes the basis for power grabs, it leads to stagnation and decline.