Children of Either Portuguese Parent, Born in the Portuguese Territory

Source: cafeprees.com

Now, that we know who is entitled to the citizenship, the types of citizenship, the procedures through which someone can obtain it and the effects of such procedures, we will now analyse case by case of those who are entitled to the Portuguese citizenship.

The Article 1, 1, (a) of the Nationality Act and the Article 3, (a) of the Portuguese Nationality Statute establish that “the children of either Portuguese parents, born in the Portuguese territory” are native Portuguese citizens.

This is, indeed, the most straightforward case of all, in which a child of a Portuguese couple or of a couple formed by at least one Portuguese citizen is born in Portugal, Azores or Madeira.

The Portuguese Civil Registration Code, on its Article 96, establishes that the births occurred in the Portuguese territory must be verbally communicated to a “Conservatória do Registo Civil” – Portuguese Civil Register Office, within 20 days of the birth, or at the hospital or maternity in which the birth took place, if the hospital/maternity has this service available, until the date mother and child are discharged from there.

The Registration Code also establishes that the parents are the ones who should communicate the birth of the child to the Portuguese Civil Register Office. Only in their absence is that a third person or entity can make such declaration.

So, every child that is born in the Portuguese territory to a Portuguese parent will grant his/her citizenship in the moment the parent register his/her birth in the Portuguese Civil Register Office. And this is it, nothing further must be done.

But this does not mean that exceptions cannot take place and that something that seems to be so straightforward cannot become complicated.

For example: the case of the children of Portuguese citizens born in the Portuguese territory that, later on, have stopped being a Portuguese territory. This we will talk about further on.

Summing up:

Case: children of either Portuguese parent, born in the Portuguese territory;

Type of citizenship: Original Citizenship;

Procedure indicated: Registration of Birth.

Larissa Bona

History of Portugal: The Pre-History

Source: eb1-mateus-n2.rcts.pt

The region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and then by Homo sapiens.

Early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from central Europe and intermarried with the local populations, forming different ethnic groups, with many tribes.

Chief among these tribes were the Calaicians or Gallaeci of northern Portugal, the Lusitanians of central Portugal, the Celtici of Alentejo, and the Cynetes or Conii of the Algarve.

Among the lesser tribes or sub-divisions were the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi,Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli,Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turdulorum Oppida, Turodi, and Zoelae).

There were, in the southern part the country, some small, semipermanent commercial coastal settlements founded by Phoenicians-Carthaginians (such as Tavira, in the Algarve).

It should also be mentioned that, according to some scholars, Celtic culture may well have developed first in far Southern Portugal and Southwestern Spain, approximately 500 years prior to anything recorded in Central Europe.

Source: Wikipedia

Larissa Bona

The Effects of the Procedures to Obtain the Portuguese Citizenship

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Larissa Bona

Visa

Source: uwf.edu

The Oxford Dictionary says that border means “a line separating two political or geographical areas, especially countries”.

The borders establish the boundaries of the territory of the nations and, even though most of them are just fictional, they are sometimes harder to be surpassed than if they were high mountains.

Every day, we see in the press cases of people who risk their lives to surpass the border of the countries seeking better life condition, like those migrants that cross the Mexican desert to reach the USA or those migrants that go from Africa to Europe in canoes.

Some of these people make it, some of these people are arrested and some of these people die trying to reach other countries, but all of them have something in common: they do not have a Visa.

The Visa, word derived from the Latin expression “Charta Visa” – which means paper that has been seen, is the right key that opens the gates of all borders in the world, that is, this document is an authorisation issued by the countries allowing people that are not their citizens to enter in their territories.

There are several reasons that motivate a person to leave his/her own country and head to another country: tourism, medical treatment, work, seeking asylum, war, investment and others.

Due to this, all countries have several types of Visas, each one suitable for every single reason that justifies the entrance of a foreigner in their territories, and each type of Visa has the requirements that the aliens (word also used to refer to foreigners) must meet in order to earn the permission to enter in the territory of a country.

For example, when someone applies for a Tourist Visa, this person is usually required to show proofs that he/she has enough bonds with his/her country, so they are not using the trip to migrate illegally, thus this person will have to show that he/she has a job, money to support himself/herself during the trip, accommodation and so on.

Sometimes, depending on the country that the foreigner comes from, due to international agreements, he/she does not need a Visa to enter in the territory of another country.

An example of this is the fact that Portuguese citizens do not need a Visa to enter in the USA or Brazil as tourists.

Larissa Bona

Procedures to Obtain the Portuguese Citizenship

Source: europabrasil.com.br

The Portuguese Nationality Act, on its Title I, lists the procedures through which someone can obtain the Portuguese citizenship, which are:

• The Attribution of Citizenship (Chapter I);
• The Acquisition of Citizenship (Chapter II).

The attribution of citizenship is the procedure that those persons who are entitled to the original citizenship must follow in order to obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

It is in this procedure that we see the “transmission” of citizenship from parents to children and it is the easiest and most straightforward way to obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

The acquisition of citizenship is the procedure that the persons who are entitled to the derivative citizenship must follow to obtain the citizenship.

The Nationality Act subdivides the acquisition of citizenship into:

1. Acquisition of citizenship through effect of will: this is the procedure that must be followed to obtain the citizenship for spouses and civil partners of Portuguese citizens and for underage children of Portuguese citizens that have obtained the Portuguese citizenship through acquisition of citizenship;
2. Acquisition of citizenship through adoption: this is the procedure that must be followed by the underage adopted children of Portuguese citizens;
3. Acquisition of citizenship through naturalisation: this is the due procedure for grandchildren, great grandchildren, children of foreign parents born in Portugal, foreign citizens that live in Portugal for over 6 years.

Besides these two procedures, there is also the late registration of birth, regulated by the Portuguese Civil Registration Code, which is suitable for the cases in which the birth of the child was not registered within one year of his/her birth.

This is the procedure that must be followed by those who were born in Goa, the former African Colonies, Macau and East Timor, because these people are all Portuguese but, because the territories they were born are no longer part of Portugal, their births were not registered in the Portuguese Civil Register Office.

Summing up and still speaking roughly, we have three procedures through each the applicants can obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

Larissa Bona

The Portuguese Community in the USA

Source: Presidency of Portugal website

Today, I will talk about the Portuguese Community in the USA, the second largest Portuguese community outside Portugal (only Brazil has more Portuguese community members than the USA).

For a long time, there were not accurate numbers with regards to the Portuguese community in the USA, because the American Census always included them in the Latino category.

However, since 2007, the U.S. Census has included the option Portuguese when asking the ancestry of the USA residents and then it was discovered that there were around 1,5 million members in the Portuguese community.

In June of that same year, the President of Portugal, Mr. Cavaco Silva, travelled to the USA and had a meeting with the Portuguese Community in Newark, NJ. And below I put a text I have extracted from the website of the “Meeting with the Portuguese Communities”, talking about the Portuguese people in the USA:

“The Portuguese presence in America goes back to 1850, when many Portuguese took part in the gold rush and in the creation of agricultural settlements in California. Businesses connected with whale fishing equally contributed to a large wave in immigration.

In the first twenty years of the XX century some 130,000 Portuguese emigrated to the USA. From 1900 to 1914, that number represented 16.7% of our emigration. In 1916 and in 1920 that percentage increased to 46.3% and 37.3%, respectively. The 30’s and 40’s witnessed a large decrease (11,372), an effect of the immigration quotas, by the great depression and by the universal instability. From the mid 50’s (Capelinhos volcanic eruption in the Azores) and during the 60’s, emigration to America again increased and, in accordance with official figures, the USA received, from 1960 to 1990, 218,.541 Portuguese. The last American census, dated 2000, states a total number of 1,173,691 Portuguese and Portuguese descendants resident in the USA.

The large majority of the members of the Portuguese Community are employed by industrial enterprises, and a considerable number are employed by the service industry and are also noted personalities in the scientific, educational and arts areas. A significant number are also members of the liberal professions.

At this moment there are approximately 95 Portuguese or citizens of Portuguese ascendancy elected to political office.

There are 385 Portuguese and Portuguese descendant communities in the United States of America, which include recreational and cultural associations, social and sports clubs, educational foundations, libraries, theatrical groups, brass bands, folklore dancing groups, philanthropic and religious societies and regional associations.

Portugal currently has Consulates General in Boston, New York, Newark and S. Francisco, Consulates in New Bedford and Providence and a Consular Section in the Portuguese Embassy in Washington.”

Larissa Bona

Types of Portuguese Cizenship

Cristiano Ronaldo (left) is a Portuguese footballer with original citizenship and Deco (right) is a Portuguese footballer with derivative citizenship (he is naturalised)

Now that we already know who is entitled to the Portuguese citizenship, the next step is to establish the types of citizenship these people are entitled to.

This is important to know because each type of citizenship determines which procedures the applicants must follow to submit the application and, consequently, which effects his/her citizenship will have on the future generations of his/her family.

There are two types of Portuguese citizenship:

•          Original Citizenship; and
•           Derivative Citizenship

The Original Citizenship is the citizenship of those who are considered native Portuguese citizens by the Portuguese law, who, according to the article 1 of the Nationality Act, are:

• Children of either Portuguese parents;
• Children of foreign citizens, born in the Portuguese territory, as long as:

1. At least one of the parents was also born in the Portuguese territory and was living in    Portugal on the birth date of the child; or
2. Neither of his/her parents was in Portugal to serve to their own country, at least one of the parents was legally settled in Portugal for at least five years on the birth date of the child and the child also officially declare he/she wants to be a Portuguese citizen.

• People born in the Portuguese territory who does not hold any other citizenship.

The Derivative Citizenship is the citizenship of those who are not native Portuguese citizens but have obtained the Portuguese citizenship due to other requirements than the mentioned above. This is the case of:

•           Adopted children of Portuguese citizens;
•           Grandchildren of Portuguese citizens;
•           Great grandchildren of Portuguese citizens;
•           Spouses and civil partners of Portuguese citizens;
•           Children of foreign citizens, born in the Portuguese territory, that do not meet the requirements of the article 1 of the nationality law;
•           Those who had lost the Portuguese citizenship;
•           Foreign citizens who are legally settled down in Portugal for at least 6 years.

Despite of being special cases not brought by the article 1 of the Portuguese Nationality Act, those citizens born in the former Portuguese territories in India, Africa, Macau, East Timor are entitled to the original citizenship.

Larissa Bona