Sure, if you have time then hit up others directly. But if you only have time for 1 or 2 emails, I’d suggest using already ‘warm’ channels instead of ‘cold calling.’
I email AIMA every day asking them to please get our GV approvals over the line (Bios last year). So far has been fruitless, but maybe someday I’ll win the Portuguese lotto on that 
how do people join?
I’ve been wondering if there might be a financial basis to argue (in court, if necessary) that as an ARI holder, there is material harm done by the citizenship change (as well as the refusal to promulgate the law counting time while awaiting a residence card). This is a separate path of argument that doesn’t apply to D7/MI folks.
Basically, since we all invested a bunch of money, predicated on the idea of applying for citizenship in 5 years, the deviations of that are causing us to keep our investments tied up much longer than originally promised.
In either or both cases - rolling back the law counting time waiting for the card, or lengthening the time required for citizenship - this is a quite material change, which can be a major disruption on the financial outcomes of the holders, through unexpected illiquidity as well as opportunity cost.
As Prime Legal put it in their post on the topic,
Protection of Legitimate Expectation: A legal (or juridical) expectation refers to a situation in which an interest is legally recognised and protected during the formation or acquisition of a right, particularly when that right depends on the completion of a complex, multi-step process. A legal expectation is deserving of legal protection, as opposed to a mere factual expectation, which does not enjoy such protection.
So my thought process here is that with the financial, contractual nature of the ARI investments being predicated on the promised timelines, one could make a pretty solid argument that the changes hurt all parties involved: both the investors themselves, as well as the funds and fund managers, who will now be forced to invent ways to extend the time horizons of the closed-ended funds longer than expected.
So if the argument is that changing nationality law doesn’t have retroactive harm to visa holders - then the ARI is a counterexample to that, because this is, at least financially, retroactive harm.
Now, given that the new government has made a few comments about wanting to make the ARI more appealing/attractive to new applicants, it seems this financial/investment argument holds even more water - as to introduce the unpredictability and instability directly counteracts this stated goal.
Basically - if we can’t defend our rights and expectations as immigrants generally, then the financial/contractual nature of the investments seems a harder thing to rug pull.
Curious to hear if this line of reasoning tracks with anyone else.
I agree, this is again what makes the ARI applicants/holders a different category vs. anyone else. So anyone who already invested and applied for ARI (not only ARI holders) should be grandfathered if any change comes along for the Nationality Law.
It’s like you are buying a sofa and the store promises to make it and deliver to you say in 3 months. Then 2 weeks before the deadline they say no it’s gonna be 6 months. Obviously in that case they must compensate by delivering it with a full or significant part-refund (or deliver it on time if they want to keep the full price paid).
My guess is this is to build a case for the “legal (or juridical) expectation.”
If an amendment comes into effect on date X without any transition period written in, consider the following three GV holders/applicants:
Applicant 1 surely has a case; applicant 2 who knows; applicant 3 maybe has a shot.
I agree with this interpretation, as does my lawyer in Lisbon. The government’s representations at the time of investment (which included a 5 year path to citizenship) formed the basis for decisions involving serious financial commitments. That is qualitatively different from other visa pathways. The fact ARI holders made a large financial investment as a precursor to their application means a whole range of laws and legal principles are involved that don’t apply to most other immigrants, or at least not with the same force. This makes our situation not just a question of immigration or citizenship law, but also contract law, investment and securities law, consumer protection law, tax law etc etc. There are also commitments under EU law to throw into the mix.
Media coverage doesn’t address any of these legal subtleties because they tend to focus on headline changes to immigration and citizenship processes and rarely talk about ARI specifically, but we are in a different category with our own legal rights and challenges.
I think a really important point that we shouldn’t lose sight of, is the goal of the government in making changes. Is it to limit the number of new PT citizens (a certain % of whom will actually leave the country and go elsewhere in the EU after getting their passport)? Or is it to make moving to PT less attractive for “new” immigrants and so discourage as many from arriving? I would argue strongly that their goal is the latter, which would mean that trying to force through retroactivity is much less important in helping them achieve their goal. For the family reunification they might also follow the UK’s lead and restrict it for certain visa types. For example in the UK they said those on student visas and care workers could no longer bring dependents. Can you really see them stopping someone who’s applying for a D2 visa, for example, bringing their family? It would be a massive own goal if they did, as this is not the type of immigration they want to discourage…
Just to keep y’all updated, I have received an early Monday morning response from Chega (of all people…), basically acknowledging the receipt:
“I am instructed by … to acknowledge the electronic message dated …, which has received our attention. I would like to inform you that the above is of the utmost importance to us, and we have forwarded it to the working group for analysis.”
At least some reaction… 
This Government does not have an absolute majority, and consequently elements of its Programme – eg changes to the laws affecting rights of the primary visa holder to be joined by family are linked to EU laws/directives (ie some restraint is likely) while proposed changes to the nationality law (that lengthen duration of residence required before a citizenship application), comes under national jurisdiction and consequently dependent on votes from other parties.
We know that the election has left extreme left-leaning members of parliament much reduced in number, being replaced by a larger number of right-of-centre (Chega) members who argue for much stricter controls on immigration and nationality and generally only opening doors for those whose skills are needed in the country.
The critical question is whether ARI investors who have not yet reached the residency period of 5 years (but are close) will need to wait for double the number of years – if a bill to increase the length of residence is passed before they reach the current 5 years.
Both CDS and Chega have been in favour of ARI – CDS brought it into practice and if I recall well, Ventura used to work for one of the GV companies (as consultant).
However, a debate on the number of years of residence required is not likely to make exceptions, except for those who have already applied (ie not retroactive). So, the best hope is that the citizenship bill doesn’t come soon to Parliament…
Do you think that crowd sourcing a “letter” to the political parties from a large number of GV holders listing the amount of tourist tax, purchases, restaurant charges, hotel charges, real estate taxes, and GV fees they have paid over the course of their application. If we have 100+ of these it could be persuasive and might open their eyes that they don’t want to kill the golden goose.
For example,
A letter explaining how much in fees we paid, versus how much we get in public benefit. In my case it might look something like this:
ARI Applicant T. Biggs 2/2021
Paid 350 in analysis fees
Paid 2000 per family member in SEF approval fees = 6000
Paid real estate tax 800
Paid furniture at Lisbon store 2200
Paid Hotel fees 800
Paid airport fees 55
Paid renewal fees 2000
Paid annual real estate tax 800
received no benefit from social security
received no benefit from Saude
activity learning Portuguese language
Another similar and more simple option is to just list sample expenses of a few members, and then mention that there are thousands more ARI applications and we estimate these numbers for total investment and total taxes and spending in the economy.
I think they generally know that ARI applicants invested a lot of money.
Giving them too much detail on numbers is not likely to be of much use, but some grand total numbers would be good to work out.
FWIW, I did mention both the investment and the expenses/fees part in my initial letter, but I did not calculate the totals for the whole history of ARI.
Does anyone know when we will get more details on the ‘new’ naturalization process? I’m curious if it’s a bit of a classic move of ‘over demand, then settle on what you really wanted’. So they ask for 10 years, but get like 7 year and leave it at that.
I think they talked about ‘averages’ time being lower than the rest of the eu, which is true based off this list, but I always wonder whether gdp is really taken into account by governments in the eu. Populations are declining, they are going to have to adapt to immigration if they want to keep their economies growing, just like the anglo countries have. Germany at least seems to have understood this. Increasing the time to naturalisation doesn’t really fix their problems in my opinion, it just looks like a political PR move.
Interesting, so you mean Chega is both anti-immigrant and pro-GV? How do they square that logic?
Pls invest?? No citizenship!! Only invest
They seem to not judge immigrants a a single, monolithic group. They seem to dislike immigrants who are poor and consume services while paying very little if anything into the system while they do like immigrants who are rich and willingly put money into Portugal without consuming the systems resources.
The Portuguese are also not a single, monolithic group. You seem to describe the utilitarians, but they also want to tie up GV money for as long as possible without granting citizenship (without killing the program’s credibility with repeated changes to laws, reneging, and killing the golden goose).
The utilitarians talk about demographics, productivity, and tax base. They prefer
The “nationalists” / cultural purists have a more sentimental attitude towards citizenship. For example, “Portugal is a country with X hundred years of history, so it should take at least 20 years to naturalise.” Or, “all these Brazilians/South Asians/[fill in the blank] just want a Portuguese passport without wanting to become Portuguese—let’s not be the easiest country within the EU.”
Even Chega is a mix of the two constituents. Chega’s heart might be cough, “nationalist”, but if you look at their election program/debates on immigration, they talk about everyday utilitarian issues 99% of the time.
10 years is crazy. I mean a sovereign nation can do whatever they want. But 10 years? One of the richest countries in the world - Switzerland has it at 12 years. Other advanced economies like Germany - 5 years, UK - 5 years and so on. 10 years for a dying economy?
I think it’s crazy because most if not all western nations are losing population, you need more people to improve gdp etc. I just don’t get why they don’t just setup their immigration system to be more selective for productivity. It shouldn’t really have anything to do with citizenship tbh.
The short answer is opportunism. The longer answer (rationale for the ascendancy of Chega in 5 years) is what the other parties are trying to figure out. Probably related to the the leader’s real oratory gifts, the disenfranchisement of voters and the lack of change in the poorer areas of the country.
The UK is also considering doubling years required for “Indefinite Leave to Remain” from 5 to 10. UK Citizenship is ILR + 1 more year… so would need 11 years instead of 6 if this went ahead.
Unclear whether this will only be for new applicants, or also retroactive for people already waiting for ILR.
Changes to UK visa and settlement rules after the 2025 immigration white paper
Will migrants have to wait ten years for indefinite leave to remain?
The standard qualifying period for permanent residence will be increased under the government’s proposals. The default will be settlement after ten years, rather than five years at present, but some people will be able to qualify earlier. Under this “earned settlement” proposal, there will be a shorter pathway than ten years for people who have made “Points-Based contributions to the UK economy and society” (paragraph 266). The white paper does not say how these points would be earned or how much of a reduction on the ten-year qualifying period would be available. These issues are likely to be covered in the promised consultation.Will people already in the UK have to wait longer for indefinite leave to remain?
The government has not confirmed whether people already in the immigration routes affected will have to wait longer for settlement, as opposed to the change only applying to those arriving after the implementation date. … The white paper’s technical annex suggests that the Home Office does envisage the change affecting those already here: “a number of those currently in the UK are likely to leave due it taking longer to gain settled status” (PDF, paragraph 11).
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10267/