Portugal Faces 50,000 Undocumented Residents as Deportations Accelerate
Tucked behind Portugal’s record-breaking rise in foreign residents lies a far less visible narrative: tens of thousands of people now live in the country without valid papers, caught between overstretched immigration desks, abrupt rule changes and an accelerating push for deportations. Police chiefs admit they are unsure of the exact figure, yet insist it runs into the “large dozens of thousands.” As Lisbon weighs a tougher line on removals, many Portuguese wonder what this means for neighbourhood services, the housing crunch and, ultimately, the nation’s reputation as an open door in Europe.
A Growing Shadow Population
Estimates shared by the National Public Security Police (PSP) suggest a pool of irregular migrants larger than the population of a medium-sized Portuguese city. Most entered with the hope of regularising their status through the now-defunct “manifestação de interesse” pathway, only to see the mechanism scrapped in June 2024. Today the bulk of this informal community is made up of Brazilians and workers from the Indian sub-continent, especially India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Demographers stress that the overall foreign population has quadrupled since 2017, surging from 590,000 in 2020 to almost 1.6 M at the end of 2024, before adding future residencies still under review.
Why the Numbers Keep Swelling
Behind every stalled case lies a paper trail that stretches back to the hand-over from the former SEF border agency to its successor, AIMA. The transfer saddled the new body with about 440,000 pending files. Even after archiving 170,000 dead-end requests, officials concede that 40,000–50,000 dossiers remain unresolved, some languishing for three years. While job offers in construction, agriculture and hospitality continue to attract newcomers, a tightening of residence-permit rules now rejects any application that is not 100 % complete at submission. The result, lawyers argue, is a spike in “irregularity by default”— people who meet labour market needs yet slip into illegality because the queue moved faster than the paperwork.
Government’s Rapid-Fire Response
Determined to regain control, the current administration has ordered a battery of measures: funding of €5.97 M to expand AIMA’s workforce, a 300-person task-force to blitz the backlog by June 2025, and the controversial decision to scrap the first voluntary-departure notice, accelerating forced removals. New legislation slices appeal windows, while a network of 30 additional service centres and a fresh digital portal aim to stop queues snaking round the block. Interior-ministry aides insist this is “rule-of-law housekeeping,” not a “witch-hunt for illegals.”
On the Front Lines: PSP and AIMA
Implementation falls largely to the PSP’s National Unit for Foreigners and Borders (UNEF), led by deputy director João Ribeiro. Officers report uncovering airport rackets that sell fake labour contracts—often in Portuguese—used to obtain entry visas. Parallel to enforcement, AIMA has prolonged the validity of residence cards until mid-October 2025 to ease pressure on local branches that still rely on paper files. Yet every extension carries its own paradox: it buys time for officials, but also prolongs uncertainty for migrants trying to rent apartments, open bank accounts or register with a family doctor.
Everyday Consequences for Residents
Civil-society groups warn that the squeeze is felt beyond Polícia headquarters. Recent health directives linking access to the National Patient Register with residence status risk leaving undocumented workers uninsured. In primary schools, teachers grapple with larger classes and a sharp rise in Portuguese as a Second Language enrolments. Meanwhile the housing market—already stretched by tourism and low wages—sees migrants pushed into over-crowded rooms at soaring rents, a scenario that fuels tension in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve alike. Economists note, however, that sectors from agriculture to tech now rely on foreign labour for growth; a mass exodus could pinch the national labour force just as EU funds roll in for public-works projects.
What Comes Next?
Ministers pledge that the backlog will be cleared by year-end and insist deportations will target only those whose applications have been definitively rejected. Yet with 9,268 departure notices already issued in the first half of 2025—twenty-times last year’s tally—the human stakes are high. For Portuguese residents, the challenge is to balance confidence in rule enforcement with the country’s long-held self-image as a welcoming crossroads. For policy-makers, the clock is ticking: either AIMA’s digital makeover delivers orderly pathways soon, or the pool of invisible neighbours will continue to expand, testing both compassion and capacity in equal measure.