Text Priscila S. Nazareth Ferreira*
Like someone who practices gossip magazine style politics, inventing suspense to gain an audience, the Chega party allied itself with the others on the right and handily approved the Nationality Law. This new law removes the time from applying for residence, increases the time for original nationality for children of immigrants, among other losses.
Who here remembers Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s “no, no” on governance and association with Chega’s agenda? After all, this rhetorical speech that raged in his first term, shortened by scandals at his family businesses, has now turned into a beautiful marriage.
Like a demure “maiden”, who always imposes her reservations on the court, the PSD is now exposing this romance. And from “no, no” we move on to “with pleasure”, as long as the theater of both convinces the public that the PSD is moderate but knows how to sell itself as extreme to steal votes from the consort.
The Nationality Law places Brazil in a seven-year category for residency purposes. Brazil, which was once home to the Monarchy, which fled from Napoleon, settled in Rio de Janeiro for more than half a century. At that time, the lands of beloved Brazil gave Portuguese nationality to the individual born there, uniting a population in territory, national identity, culture, cuisine and affections. Even the emperor, princes and princesses of Portugal were born in Brazil.
Today in Portugal we are “those Brazilians who come here”, heard in a tone of contempt, arrogance and cynicism. Cynicism because the riches that still adorn Portugal today come from these lands and Portuguese-speaking African countries.
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Denying nationality in this context would only be acceptable if the State worked in terms of immigration. Today, more than half of immigrants who hold a residence permit find it extremely difficult to obtain a valid document.
We are talking about a population that ends up having to take legal action to enforce a constitutional right, articles 13 and 15 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic. The courts are overloaded, and new laws seek to interrupt the flow of lawsuits, to make it even more difficult to exercise a right.
Nationality means freedom to never again have to humiliate yourself at the doors of AIMA, it means never again to have your bank account and user number canceled because your documents have expired.
Nationality means not being subjugated to the speech of a Prime Minister who says in a mocking tone “the illegals are leaving”, when he does not publicly confess that the Government made them illegal because it delays the delivery of documents.
But why give the right to facilitated nationality and respect the CPLP populations? After all, it is the practice among Europeans to see us only as “employees”, never an equal, always inferior.
Saying that we are also Portuguese is an insult to many of them. That’s what I often hear. “You’re not Portuguese, you’re Brazilian”, as if it were incompatible to be both. This speech took to the streets, won the Assembly of the Republic and spread like gunpowder fired in the mouth of a party that only has one agenda: humiliating immigrants.
Time, master of all follies, will show Portugal who loses with this new law. But by then it will be too late, and Brazilians will already say “Hola” and “hasta luego”, instead of “Hello” and “Bye”.
*Priscila S. Nazareth Ferreira is a Private International Law lawyer working on immigration.
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