But it is not a ‘happy picture’ of seamless integration
The number of foreign nationals living in Portugal in 2022 was 800,000 �` double the figure of 10 years ago �` with one in three living at risk of poverty and half a million having been granted Portuguese nationality in the last 15 years, according to the statistical database of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation.

In a portrait of the “foreign population and migratory flows in Portugal” on the occasion of International Migration Day today, the database, dubbed Pordata, has sought to assess the number and living conditions of immigrants and developments in the granting of nationality and residence permits.

The study concludes that 76% of foreigners come from non-European Union countries, and have an unemployment rate that is more than double the national average (in 2021, for example, these foreigners were earning an estimated “€94 less per month than the national average”).
Just in 2022, “118,000 immigrants entered Portugal, the highest figure since records began” �` while 31,000 left, translating into “23,000 fewer (-43%) than in the year with the highest number of departures, 2013,” Pordata says in its release.
Last year, there were 798,480 foreign nationals living in Portugal legally or in the process of having their residence made legal by state services, representing 7.6% of the total population.
“In the last 15 years, Portuguese nationality has been granted to around half a million foreigners (468,665), both resident and non-resident in Portugal,” says Pordata, pointing out that in the last two years the majority of these grants were given to non-resident citizens with as many as one third going to descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews in 2022.
The number of immigrants decreased between 2010 and 2015, but since then there has been a very large increase and, as an example, between 2018 and 2019, the growth in the number of resident foreigners was of more than 110,000.
“Compared to the Portuguese population, the foreign population in Portugal has a higher proportion of men

and is younger,” notes Pordata’s release, adding that the median age is 37, or seven years less than the median age of the Portuguese population.
“The most representative nationalities in Portugal are Brazilian (29.3%), British (6%), Cape Verdean (4.9%), Italian (4.4%), Indian (4.3%) and Romanian (4.1%),” reads the report.
This increase in the foreign population is reflected in the education system, with the number of immigrants enrolled doubling in five years to 105,955 in the 2021/22 school year.
In primary schools, one in 10 children is a foreigner and a third of doctoral students at universities are immigrants.
On the labour front, according to Eurostat, quoted by Pordata, more than one third have temporary work contracts (against an average of 16% among Portuguese nationals in work) and Portugal is 4th country in the EU in terms of the most non-permanent contracts in the European Union among foreign nationals.
With regard to poverty and social exclusion, 31% of foreigners living in Portugal face both �` translating into 11 percentage points above the average for the native Portuguese population facing poverty and social exclusion. This problem is “particularly acute among those from outside Europe (34%).
“Since 2019, the number of immigrants has been three times higher than the number of emigrants, contributing to positive migratory balances,” although the number of emigrants is still significant, adds Pordata, which also analyses that side of things.
“In 2022, 31,000 emigrants left Portugal, 23,000 fewer than in the year that saw the highest number of departures, 2013,” with two thirds of these being men, and almost half (47.6%) having higher education.
Among those who left last year, 51% went to another EU member state; in an analysis of previous years, Pordata concluded that “in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021, more emigrants left with higher education than with basic education.”
Source: LUSA V.5146

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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