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The Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) states that “administrative practices with a different interpretation of the law will be corrected by the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF).” In response to a PUBLIC report in which the Associação Olho Vivo denounced that the SEF was preventing the regularization of children under three years of age born in Portugal, daughters of undocumented parents, MAI also said that “any specific situation that may arise from it it will be re-analyzed according to the criteria of the Immigration Law ”.
Before, children who were born in Portugal could be regularized before, but at this time, “programming can only be done from the time the child is three years old,” said Flora Silva, director of Olho Vivo, which for years has supported immigrants, specifically in the regularization processes. Flora Silva tried several times to make appointments at the SEF for these situations and the answer was always the same: she would have to wait until she was three years old, but they did not explain why the change was due.
The SEF, questioned by the PUBLIC, did not respond in due time. The MAI now clarifies that, as the PUBLIC said, the law “does not establish an age limit to grant a residence permit to minors”, regardless of the situation of the parents.
There is nothing in the alien law that imposes this three-year rule. According to the law, foreign children born in Portugal, daughters of parents who are not yet regularized, have the right to apply for a residence permit as long as they attend pre-school education and the parents provide proof of their means of subsistence.
Children who were in the nursery could make this request, Flora Silva said. But recently – and Flora Silva has not been able to say since when – a new criterion has been introduced, “we do not know where it comes from”: the child must be three years old to apply for residence. “Therefore, the child remains during this period without family allowance, without rights even though the parents are working and discounting … It is a great setback,” he criticizes. “We think that it is a great injustice that children are undocumented, and for a very long period: it is as if it does not exist, at a time when the costs of education are very high.”
The immigration law establishes that minors born in Portugal enjoy a resident status identical to that granted to either of their parents. In the comment notes on the law at site of the SEF it is said that the regularization of a child’s documents “is of immediate importance to better enjoy basic rights, such as those related to their health and education” and that even in relation to minors who are in the country of Irregularly, the State must “provide the benefit of these rights,” according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This convention stipulates that its signatories, such as Portugal, “undertake to respect and guarantee the rights provided (…) to all children who are subject to their jurisdiction, without any discrimination, regardless of any consideration of race, color, sex, language. , religion, political or other opinion of the child, of her parents or legal representatives, or of her national, ethnic or social origin, wealth, disability, birth or any other situation ”.
