Portugal wants to legalize 30,000 illegal immigrants | World

The decision approved by decree will be valid for those who have worked in the country for at least one year. There are thousands of illegal immigrants who have entered Portuguese soil without the necessary visas and who, despite their work, their integration and even the payment of their taxes, can not legalize their situation. Among these, there are a large number of Brazilians, Chinese, Nepalese and Indonesians.

Under the current law, immigrants must submit to the authorities, in addition to a work contract and social security contributions, evidence that they entered the country with the appropriate visas .

With only 10.3 million inhabitants and a declining population every year, Portugal could have the solution to the demographic issue of immigrants. The need to fight this problem is a consensus among Portuguese politicians, but there are disagreements about how this should happen.

The members of the Socialist Party (PS), among them Prime Minister Antônio Costa, argue that the country should attract skilled and economically active immigrants, facilitating the granting of visas. With parties like the Left Bloc (BE), the PS says the country needs 75,000 immigrants to face the demographic dilemma.

The Social Democrat Party (PSD) believes that the solution would be to create policies to boost the birth rate among the Portuguese, such as incentives of 10 thousand euros per child, paid in installments until the end of the year. 18 years old, as well as free day nurseries for six months.

A forecast from the National Institute of Statistics of Portugal (INE) indicates that between 2015 and 2080, the country's population will increase from 10.3 million to 7.5 million.

The number of young people is expected to increase from 1.5 million to 0.9 million. Even if there is an increase in the birth rate, the number of births should decrease due to the reduction of women of childbearing age, given the low level of fertility recorded in previous years.

In contrast, the elderly population is projected to increase from 2.1 million to 2.8 million, and the aging rate is expected to increase from 147 to 317 seniors per 100 youth by 2080.

The population of working age will increase from 6.7 million to 3.8 million. Between 2015 and 2080, this rate should rise from 315 to 137 people of working age for every 100 elderly people.

Recent data from the Portuguese Foreign and Frontier Service reveal that Brazilians make up the largest foreign community on Portuguese soil, with more than 85,000 people, or 20.3% of all immigrants in the Iberian country. In addition to Brazil, the countries with the highest number of immigrants are Cape Verde (34,986), Ukraine (32,453), Romania (30,750), China (23,197), the United Kingdom Uni (22,431), Angola (16,854), France. ), Guinea-Bissau (15,198) and Italy (12,925).