As the government opts to pay Brussels handsomely (€8.4 million) in order NOT to receive 420 asylum seekers, PSP police have delivered their 2025 report on efforts to get to grips with illegal immigration in this country.
In Porto alone, the public security police force identified 56 ‘illegal residences’ occupied by around 900 foreign citizens.
In a statement published today, the PSP refers to the residences identified as having “several irregularities”, including overcrowding, lacking minimum conditions of hygiene and/ or security as well as having insect infestations. Failings also lay in a lack of rental contracts for the many tenants.
During 2025, the police force carried out 63 arrests (most of them for ‘irregular permanence in Portugal), registered 167 ‘offences’ against the Metropolitan Area of Porto, and led 517 operations which managed to check 5,394 foreign citizens.
In these operations, 106 foreigners were notified to leave the country voluntarily, while another 233 were identified as having processes already opened against them in the Schengen Information System.
Says the PSP statement: “The PSP reinforces its daily efforts to prevent and crack down on illegal activities linked to illegal immigration and human trafficking, as well as to detect situations of social vulnerability, often associated with poor housing conditions and difficulty in accessing a regulated labour market, contributing to the prevention of crime associated with these issues.”
The various interventions carried out last year went ahead via Porto’s foreigners and frontier control nucleus (NECF) under the coordination of the national unit of foreigners and frontiers (UNEF).
Meantime, the Portuguese government has flatly refused to take asylum seekers under a European initiative designed to ‘spread the load’ otherwise heaped on countries like Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus.
Unlike Poland – which has refused not only to take in any new asylum seekers, but also to pay into the initiative – Portugal has agreed to pay €8.4 million in order not to have to receive the 420 migrants that Europe would like to have sent here. These immigrants will now require another country to take them.
Reporting on this story, SIC Notícias explains the “government prefers to pay because it considers Portugal does not have the capacity to receive more asylum seekers without compromising the system.”
Source: LUSA/ SIC
