SIC NEWS
A Guinean man, who has lived in Portugal for 40 years and is the great-grandson of a Portuguese man, has been waiting for a response to his nationality application for five years and there is a plan to renew his residence. He hasn’t been back to Bissau since childhood, he has a wife and two Portuguese children. However, he ended up applying for nationality in July 2021.
Filipe was afraid of traveling with his family, of something happening and of being separated from his wife and two children, all Portuguese.
Since May last year it has been pending on the penultimate point, awaiting a decision. He could have applied for nationality through marriage or ancestry.
There are five years of a process that, on average, and with delays, usually does not exceed two and a half years. Waiting with an expired residence permit. He asked for renewal a year ago and, since then, he has also been waiting, without answers.
After 40 years of living in Portugal, he begins to feel as he did when, in the 80s, he arrived with his mother and brother.
To SIC, the Institute of Registries and Notaries says that it does not provide information on personal cases. AIMA generally recognizes longer processing times due to high demand.
Answers that leave Filipe in the strange limbo of working and paying taxes and not having Portuguese papers from the country where he has lived since he was four years old. He will continue to wait and, now, without leaving the country, afraid of not being able to return.
