Portugal's new nationality law: children of immigrants can now legally become Portuguese citizens

Parties amended the law after the President vetoed changes because of discrimination between couples with and without children, where one parent is a foreigner.

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

Editorial Team

23 November 2020, 10:32

Portugal's new nationality law has been passed by the President of the Republic. This means that the children of immigrants who have been living in the country for at least a year, even illegally, can become Portuguese at birth. The same applies in cases where one of the parents is legally resident on Portuguese territory, regardless of the time they have lived there.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had initially rejected the law that proposed some changes based on the creation of discrimination between couples with or without children. However, parties then corrected the decree by removing references to the existence of children.

Currently, the access of foreigners to Portuguese citizenship by marriage or partnership is possible for those who have been in this relationship for at least three years: it is necessary to prove this duration. The new rule, which, as mentioned, originally took into account the existence of children, meaning that couples with children were exempt from having to prove the duration of the relationship.

The President of the Republic considered that this created further discrimination against couples who did not have children and couples who, having children, were not children of the couple - that is to say, children of previous relationships of one of the members of the couple. According to the Portuguese daily newspaper Público, the president asked the Parliament to correct what he considered to be "politically unjust" and "disproportionate", because it disadvantaged some couples.