Portugal Election: People Push Back Against Mass Immigration
Recent Portuguese elections saw an unprecedented vote share for a newer party called Chega (“Enough!” in Portuguese) advocating for stronger border controls. While the party has been predictably denounced as “far right,” there is nothing extreme about wanting migration to be managed within proper limits, something Portugal’s previous government refused to do. This is yet more proof that, across the world, forces that advocate sensible migration policies are in the ascendancy. What happened in Portugal to create these circumstances, and why is it relevant for America?
Under outgoing Prime Minister António Costa, in power since 2015, Portugal’s immigration laws were greatly relaxed. His administration made open borders almost a point of faith. Among the policies were a relaxed system for registering foreign workers, even if they entered illegally, and a fast track to naturalization. As other European nations began to try and limit migration, Portugal went the opposite way. The changes were celebrated by sections of the press as making Portugal “Europe’s last open door for immigrants.” Predictably, this immediately attracted migrants from low-income countries, especially those like Angola with historic ties to Portugal.
The scale and speed of arrivals was breathtaking as the immigrant population grew 70 percent in just five years. Portuguese government statistics show that by 2022 (the last year full statistics are available), more than 780,000 legally resident foreigners (out of a total population of just over 10 million) were present in Portugal, up from 383,000 when Prime Minister Costa took over. This figure also only includes the ones who were officially counted. As in other countries, counting an illegal alien population is not always easy, and government statistics are likely to be an undercount. Among the significant number of illegal aliens in Portugal were migrants who posed a very real physical threat. As in America, open borders and overworked customs and border agencies opened the doors to drug crime. By 2022, Portugal was facing a “rising tide of cocaine”, imported by transnational gangs. In addition to drugs, there were also rising terror threats.
In 2018, police in France foiled a terrorism plot by the Strasbourg-Marseille Islamic State Terrorist Network. The perpetrators, who made a living by crimes such as credit card fraud, had first entered Europe from Africa by posing as asylum seekers in Portugal. They were granted permits by the Portuguese government, allowing them to travel to France where their attack was mercifully foiled. Ultimately, it was the Portuguese government’s open doors policies that had attracted them in the first place. Indeed, Portugal’s naturalization process was very quick and once naturalized, migrants could travel across the European Union (EU) freely and use the ESTA system for visa free travel to the U.S. Not only are Portugal’s open borders a threat to the rest of Europe, but possibly the U.S. as well.
As with everywhere else in the world, mass migration is not a wise policy. With social cohesion fraying, the economy suffering, and scandal bringing down the government of open-borders Prime Minister Costa, new elections were called. While Portugal has a long way to go in terms of restoring order to its society, the new government is likely to be much more sensible in reducing migration and put the interests of Portuguese citizens first.
Americans can take heart from this. The desire to properly manage migration is a perfectly reasonable demand and one that ultimately should win out. The parallels between America and Europe are becoming increasingly clear, as Germany, Ireland and now Portugal all show. Americans can feel encouraged that the fight for secure borders is a global one, and that it is gaining momentum.