The government recently approved, with the support of the far right, a package of measures to control immigration. The announcement appealed to a firm state, finally capable of lifting barriers and responding to the diffuse anxieties of society. But behind rhetoric, the uncomfortable reality is hidden, as an essential part of the migratory phenomenon is left out. What sweeps under the rug is informal, invisible, undocumented immigration to mafias and unscrupulous bosses that exploit cheap and disposable labor.
The Portuguese economy increasingly depends on this hidden presence. In agricultural fields, restoration, construction, support for the elderly, the anonymous faces of workers without contract keeps the gear at low cost. The great regulator of immigration, far from being the state, is the market, only formal in appearance and deeply informal in practice.
Hypocrisy goes through official stamps, which ensure formality appearance to illegality processes. False documents, “washed” with consular seal, circulate in Portugal with the help of intermediaries who operate as respectable corporations, but whose procedure differs little from human trafficking mafias, where crime masks bureaucracy.
Thousands of people live in the country without recognized nationality, no papers and no legal status. Setting them is impossible and identifying them is difficult, as many of them do not even have. The state is limited to looking sideways while the problem gets worse.
Faced with this picture, the government insists on short responses, made of slogans and circumstantial agreements. However, reality requires courage for a general and universal identification of all who live and work in Portugal, through a biometric digital identity system for immigrants, integrating foreign citizens into the same instruments used by nationals, with adequate citizen card, digital mobile key and APP Gov.pt.
This would end the invisibility of thousands of people, ensuring basic rights and cutting oxygen to mafias and forgery networks. The benefits are transparency, social justice, legal certainty and equality. It will only make sense if it is also an integration mechanism and not just surveillance. The political challenge is to balance control and dignity, showing that the presence of immigrants can be organized and just.
To ignore this reality is to continue to feed the insecurity that gives the extremely populist far-right. When the state pretends to control, space is occupied by fear and hatred. The “other” becomes the scapegoat and justification for xenophobic discourses that corrode democracy.
The political impact already feels, especially in local power. In local elections, the theme of immigration became fertile ground for the growth of the far right, which capitalizes fears, rumors and isolated cases. In parishes and municipalities where the presence of immigrant communities is more visible, the insurance discourse gains traction. Traditional parties, by not having serious solutions, open their way to radical forces that make fear their main electoral weapon. Each degraded neighborhood or unresolved social tension becomes an advertising stage.
Portugal needs lucidity. The question is not if we need immigrants, as this answer is given every day by the job market. The question is whether we want to continue to live between shadows, informality and hypocrisy or if we will finally have the courage to assume a migratory policy based on clear rules, universal identification and dignity. Because in silence and omission grows extremism and the result is increasingly seen in the national and local polls.
Electronic Governance Specialist