PORTUGAL: Weak Border Controls Attract Undocumented Immigrants

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Jan 8 2003 (IPS) - Portugal’s border police issued a warning this week regarding the extreme permeability of the borders along Europe’s southwestern frontier to the inflow of undocumented immigrants.

The border police – the Foreigners and Frontiers Service (SEF) – held a 24-hour strike on Jan 6 demanding better labour conditions, the hiring of additional inspectors, and purchases of up-to-date equipment to enable them to fulfill their duties.

Portugal’s Atlantic shoreboard is one of the main gateways to the European Union (EU) and the Schengen area, made up of a group of countries that agreed to eliminate border controls on movements of people between their territories.

The Schengen Accord was signed in 1985 in the city of that name in southeastern Luxembourg, by Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

The five EU members wanted to allow free circulation throughout their territories for anyone who entered the European bloc legally. But the idea was not shared by the rest of their partners in the EU, which were in favour of limiting freedom of movement to the citizens of the bloc’s member states.

The Schengen Accord went into effect in 1995, and currently groups – along with the original states – EU members Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, as well as Iceland and Norway, which do not form part of the bloc.

The Schengen area shares unified rules and regulations on visas, asylum and border controls.

The remaining EU members, the United Kingdom and Ireland, have not signed the Schengen Accord.

Portugal and the rest of the countries that have external EU borders assumed the obligation of maintaining effective controls along the outer frontier, especially to curb the inflow of undocumented immigrants.

But ”It is difficult to adequately live up to our commitments when we have one obsolete computer for every five inspectors, and when one of our vehicles broke down while chasing traffickers of cheap clandestine labour in southern Portugal because it already had 300,000 kms on the odometer,” Gonçalo Rodrígues, the president of the union of SEF agents, told IPS.

According to the union, 2,000 inspectors, rather than the current 683, would be needed to effectively oversee the borders.

”Up to two or three years ago, around 150,000 immigrants were living in Portugal, nearly all of them from Portuguese-speaking countries,” said Rodrígues.

But ”today there are more than 600,000, many of whom are undocumented workers who have fallen victim to the (people- trafficking) mafias of eastern Europe,” he said, underlining that the number of SEF agents falls far short of being able to deal effectively with that new reality.

Official SEF statistics indicate that as of Oct 31, 2002, 436,200 foreign nationals were living in the country. But experts say there were another 200,000 undocumented immigrants living and working in clandestinity.

Deficient border controls are one of the reasons for the increased inflow of undocumented immigrants to Portugal, said Rodrígues.

”If the country fails to upgrade its equipment and hire the necessary number of trained personnel to oversee its borders, it may be kicked out of the Schengen Accord, because it could endanger the security of the rest of the members,” warned Rodrígues.

Up to early 2000, the immense majority of immigrants in Portugal came from Portuguese-speaking countries and territories: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor, and the enclaves of Goa, Diu and Daman in India, Macau in China, and Malacca in Malaysia.

But the influx of large amounts of EU funds aimed at bringing Portugal’s infrastructure into line with average EU standards has led to a mushrooming of construction projects that attract workers from countries of the former east European socialist bloc, especially Ukrainians, Russians, Moldavians, Romanians and Bulgarians.

At the same time, the economic troubles Brazil has experienced in the past few years have led to an increase in the average number of immigrants coming from that giant South American country, from 13,700 a year in 1999 to 54,400 today, without even counting those who make it in without the necessary documents.

In addition, legal immigrants frequently use Portugal as a port of entry to other countries in the Schengen area, due to the relatively greater ease with which they can obtain residency permits here.

Experts reckon that foreign nationals, including the estimated 200,000 undocumented immigrants, account for 6.3 percent of the 10 million people in this country of 89,000 square kms.

Added to the influx of EU infrastructure funds are the large flows of money circulating in the ”single European market” created by the removal of trade barriers on Jan 1, 1993, which generated some 2.5 million jobs.

Since then, companies in the bloc have gained access to a broad market, and their net worth increased by around 171.4 billion dollars, which greatly contributed to the 1.8 percent growth in the EU combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

In the past decade, annual per capita GDP grew from 9,500 to 14,000 dollars in Portugal, largely because the country formed part of a group of EU members – along with Spain, Greece and Ireland – that received EU structural funds aimed at promoting the development of the bloc’s less prosperous regions.

Local human rights organisations accuse ”unscrupulous businesses” of hiring undocumented immigrants in order to avoid paying into the social security system.

Employers who hire illegal immigrants merely pay a small fine if they are caught by the labour inspectors, while the biggest cost is paid by the immigrants themselves, who are deported from the country and the entire Schengen area.

In response to the protests by the border agents, and perhaps to avoid problems with Portugal’s partners in the Schengen Accord, the government issued a call for applicants to 184 new border police positions – a ”measure that clearly falls short,” according to the SEF trade union.

There are only two border agents to monitor the daily inflow of 2,500 passengers to the international airport in Faro, the capital of the southern tourist region of Algarve, Rodrígues pointed out.

Airlines have threatened to sue the Portuguese state for significant flight delays caused by the shortage of border police, he added.

After the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, ”all countries took serious measures to fight terrorism, with the exception of Portugal,” where ”we confiscate 10 false passports a day on average,” said the trade union leader, who announced that a second strike would be held on Jan 18.

”It is not the strikes that put national security in danger and weaken the controls in the Schengen area, but the lack of adequate measures on the part of our government leaders,” Rodrígues argued.