Portugal’s president has promulgated a law intended to accelerate the removal of foreign nationals living in the country illegally, clearing the way for it to take effect once published in the official gazette.
António José Seguro signed the text on August 31, three days after the Constitutional Court ruled unanimously that the contested provisions did not breach the constitution.
The president had sent 11 provisions of the so-called return law to the court on August 7, in his first use of preventive review since taking office in March.
He said at the time he had well-founded doubts about the protection of the best interests of the child and about the length of administrative detention of foreigners who had committed no crime.
The presidency said the ruling had also settled interpretative questions for courts and administrative authorities, including on the expulsion of children born in Portugal and the separation of parents from their children.
The law raises the maximum stay in temporary installation centres from 60 to 180 days, renewable for a further 180 where a person refuses to cooperate or where third countries delay travel documents.
It also scraps the notification giving illegal residents a period to leave voluntarily and extends to five years the ban on re-entering Portugal for those removed by force, with longer periods in aggravated cases.
The Assembly of the Republic approved the text on July 17 with votes from the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS – People’s Party (CDS-PP), which form Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s minority coalition, and from Liberal Initiative (IL).
Chega, the right-wing party that became the largest opposition force at the May 2025 election, abstained. That abstention was decisive, as the parties of the left voted against.
Chega leader André Ventura said in March his party was negotiating with the Government for rapid passage and wanted the text hardened, including an end to the suspensive effect of asylum appeals.
After the court ruling, PSD spokesman Sebastião Bugalho pointed to IL’s support in arguing there were no grounds to withhold promulgation.
The Portuguese Government has presented the reform as applying the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, whose rules on border return procedures and screening began to apply on June 12.
MEPs separately backed tougher return rules for the bloc on June 17, creating a European Return Order recorded in Schengen databases and allowing transfers to facilities in non-EU countries.
The Portuguese Refugee Council and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees submitted critical opinions during the legislative process.
Presenting the bill in March, minister of the presidency António Leitão Amaro cited 38 Moroccan nationals who landed on the Algarve coast in August 2025 and were freed once the detention limit expired.
