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Indians obtain Portuguese 'loophole' passports to get to UK

indiansGoaA British MP has criticised Portuguese legislation that has allowed thousands of Indians to settle in the UK.

Portuguese laws allow anyone born in Goa, Daman and Diu in India before 1961, as well as their children and grandchildren, full rights to Portuguese nationality and thus a ticket north to settle anywhere in the European Union.

In an article on the Daily Mail website, the Eurosceptic Conservative MP Philip Hollobone says that this is an “outrageous hole in the law."

Goa, Daman and Diu were Portuguese colonies in India until reoccupied in December 1961.

"This is an outrageous hole in the law and it should be closed. This is another case of the issuance of passports by one European Union country to people who have no intention of going to that country, but have rights go to Britain," Hollobone thundered.

"If we abandon the EU we could introduce border controls that would prevent these people from entering," read the Daily Mail article which reported that tens of thousands of Indians already have settled in the United Kingdom by becoming citizens of Portugal, although they had never been in that country.

At least 20,000 have "avoided the more stringent checks for people from outside the EU after obtaining a Portuguese passport in India, which gives them full right to live and work in the UK.”

The Mail refers to the British statistics indicating that in June 2014 there were 13,000 Indians with Portuguese passports living in the UK, and that in June 2015 there already were 20,000, "an increase of 7,000 - more than 50% in a year."

More than half the Goans with Portuguese passports are living in Swindon. The former market town had only about 25 Goans living there in 2000, but now has more than 10,000, said one of the town’s Goan leaders.

The newspaper cited a study released last year by the Migration Observatory at Oxford University that "showed how Portugal became a major gateway to the UK for tens of thousands of immigrants born outside the EU."

"The study showed that in the first quarter of 2015, some 54,000 immigrants born outside the EU were living in the UK with Portuguese passports," adding that, of 54,000, 20,000 were Indians from Goa and the rest were from other former Portuguese colonies, such as Brazil, Angola and Cape Verde.”

In August 2015, the then ambassador of Portugal in India, Jorge Roza de Oliveira, said that 90 applications are granted for citizenship each month, "the majority of those born of pre-1961 descendants, at least a thousand a year."

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3403136/How-20-000-Indians-slipped-UK-Portuguese-passports-legally.html

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Comments  

0 #7 JJ in Gibraltar 2016-01-19 20:46
Quoting Daphne:
This MP must stress that these are not 'our' Indians.


Wow Daphne! With that quote you certainly win our "Imperialist Prat (I'm being polite there) of the Decade" award.

I wish you could join us in the 21st century, but you are really not ready.

I was going to add "Sorry". But I'm not.
+1 #6 JJ in Gibraltar 2016-01-19 15:12
Quoting David Foot:
Quoting JJ in Gibraltar:


So allegedly 54,000 EU citizens with Portuguese passports live in the UK. So what?


The article says "54,000 immigrants born outside the EU were living in the UK with Portuguese passports". Note the words "born outside" - I think you've missed the point.


The point is they are legally EU citizens with legally obtained passports.

I don't know how many UK citizens with legally obtained passports live in the EU, but were born outside it. I'm willing to bet that the figure is much higher than 54,000 (do remember Britain once had an empire).

Should we be bothered? I think not. The Mail story is tosh - and the idea of a "loophole" passport faintly ridiculous.
-9 #5 Daphne 2016-01-18 20:49
This MP must stress that these are not 'our' Indians. They have no connection to the culture left behind by the British. Theirs is an alien culture - Indo/Portuguese. Mimicking the British but always failing drastically.

Contrast this with the Chinese left behind in Hong Kong by the British and those left behind in Macao by the Portuguese. The former Chinese a beacon of economic and democratic progress in south east Asia with a GDP similar to Portugal's. From 1,000 sq.kms. Citizens rights strong enough for Hong Kongers to be campaigning to protect.

Macao ..... ? Like Portugal - still run by elites. And Gambling Mafia's. Democracy a joke and citizens rights still just a vague notion.
-6 #4 David Foot 2016-01-18 20:48
Quoting JJ in Gibraltar:


So allegedly 54,000 EU citizens with Portuguese passports live in the UK. So what?


The article says "54,000 immigrants born outside the EU were living in the UK with Portuguese passports". Note the words "born outside" - I think you've missed the point.
+3 #3 Johnny English 2016-01-18 16:22
Quoting Malcolm.H:
I am sure all us Brits share this MP's outrage. Particularly as we have no idea that genuine Indian nationality and 'character' checks have been done beforehand as with the Chinese Golden Visa gangsters now swanning around Europe. How many of them too turned up in the UK ?


Frankly, I'm more outraged that someone is suggesting I'm a "Brit" - ghastly term.

What right do "Brits" have in this case? Oh yes! The right to use a UK passport to come and live in Portugal.

But how do the Portuguese know "genuine" UK nationality and "character" checks have been done beforehand? Going by some of the Brits around here, they haven't been done at all!

Scaremongering rubbish from that DM.
+3 #2 JJ in Gibraltar 2016-01-18 16:15
Let's put the issue (citizens with a passport legally obtained in one EU state, but living in another EU state) into perspective - the Daily Mail won't.

So allegedly 54,000 EU citizens with Portuguese passports live in the UK. So what?

A quick search suggests that at least 39,000 UK passport holders were living in Portugal in 2010, and 1,000,000 across the border in Spain. Gibraltar's (too?) full of them!

Another poisonous non-story from the Daily Mail.
-5 #1 Malcolm.H 2016-01-18 15:39
I am sure all us Brits share this MP's outrage. Particularly as we have no idea that genuine Indian nationality and 'character' checks have been done beforehand as with the Chinese Golden Visa gangsters now swanning around Europe. How many of them too turned up in the UK ?

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