19-year-old Brazilian young man is deported from Portugal after AIMA delays in documentation

Brazilian Kauê Matos, 19 years old, was deported from Portugal because, when he was still a minor, he was unable to request authorization to live in the country for family reunification. The request was prevented by the delay of two years in the immigration regularization of his parents.

Kauê had already lived in Portugal for two years with his parents and younger brother. Last month, upon returning from an exchange in Ireland, he was detained at Lisbon airport when he tried to return home. According to the young man, it was four days in a room with other immigrants, without being able to shower. He spent the first two days without seeing his family.

In an interview with g1, the young man described the place where he stayed. He said the beds, similar to hospital gurneys, were “extremely dirty.”

Kauê reports that they ate their meals for the day, but the room smelled bad and even the blankets provided were dirty. On the first day, he says he preferred to sleep in a chair.

In 2024, when they arrived in Portugal, the family entered the “expression of interest” process, a legal Portuguese mechanism that allowed foreign citizens to enter the country as tourists and, after obtaining a work contract or starting an independent activity that contributed to Social Security, request regularization and a residence permit.

However, the process that should have taken 90 days took two years.

At the time, Kauê was 17 years old and after his parents obtained a visa, they could file the “family grouping” process, which is the right that a foreign citizen with a valid residence permit has to bring family members to live legally in the country.

The court decision authorizing his mother to live legally in the country came out only at the beginning of this year and the father's decision on the day his son was detained by Public Security Police (PSP) agents.

With the delay in releasing the documents, Kauê reached the age of majority and therefore, the request for “family grouping” was no longer an option. According to the lawyer in the case, Renato Teixeira, the option left for the Brazilian was to request the student's residence permit, as he is attending high school in Portugal.

The lawyer explains that Portuguese legislation provides for this type of authorization and that AIMA should provide a form so that the student can make the request and send the necessary documentation. However, according to him, this form was not accessible on the organization's website.

Therefore, the only way was to make an appointment directly with AIMA by phone. According to Renato Teixeira, the problem is that contact with the agency was not easy.

You make hundreds and hundreds of calls, sometimes you spend five hours trying to call Aima and no one answers the phone. You send an email to Aima asking for an appointment and get no response, he says.

There was the alternative of going to court to ask AIMA to carry out the scheduling. However, the family did not have the financial means to hire a lawyer.

Renato explains that this is a situation faced by many immigrants, who end up being forced to go to court to access a procedure that, according to him, should be available administratively.

During the days he was detained, Kauê reports that the police did not provide any type of information about his case and that communication with his family was difficult due to the airport's poor internet connection.

He only managed to see his mother in person after two days.

The young man says that, in addition to the lack of news from the authorities, the lack of information made the situation even more tense.

On one of the days, the student was taken to a plane bound for Guarulhos International Airport, in São Paulo, and only discovered that he would be deported when he was already accommodated. Before takeoff, however, police officers removed him from the aircraft, took him back to the holding room and told him that deportation would no longer take place.

On the last night he was detained, Kauê believed he would spend another night in the detention center. Other passengers began to be called to board at the end of the night, but their names had not been announced. Shortly before 11pm, however, immigration agents called him and informed him that he would be deported.

According to the student, the police collected his cell phone and his passport, placed the two items in an envelope and told him that he would only have access to them after disembarking in Guarulhos. Before handing over the device, Kauê managed to send one last message to his parents, asking them to try to prevent the deportation.

Upon arriving in Brazil, the young man discovered that his parents and lawyer had not been officially informed either about the deportation or about the flight he was on. The family was only able to locate him because one of his teachers identified the aircraft he had boarded and notified relatives who live in Brazil to pick him up at the airport.

Already in Brazilian territory, Kauê received the news that the process that would allow him to stay in Portugal had been accepted. With that, he could be home with his family. The young man claims that he received the news with revolt.

I am extremely angry because no one told my parents that I was being deported. And, after I was deported, the process worked. If I was there, I would have to be at my house in Portugal right now, because they accepted it. And, if I hadn't been deported at that time, I would be free in my home, I would be with my parents, with my brother. Anyway, unfortunately, I'm here now.

Renato explains that he is now studying the best way to get a visa for Kauê, as the young man's classes start again in the second half of September. The goal is to prevent him from missing the school year.

In a statement, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) stated that nationality requests are not its responsibility.

AIMA clarifies that nationality/citizenship requests are the responsibility of the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN). On the other hand, border control is the responsibility of the Public Security Police (PSP), so AIMA has no comments to make on the alleged situation.

The Institute of Registries and Notaries and the Public Security Police of Portugal were also contacted by g1, but did not respond to requests for positioning until the publication of this report.