Thousands of Brits living in Portugal are having their lives “paralysed and damaged” because of the country’s failure to issue them with post-Brexit residency cards, it has been claimed.
Many UK nationals who made areas like the Algarve their home before the withdrawal agreement came into force are facing deportation and arrest when they try to enter another EU country, according to Tig James, who runs the British in Portugal campaign group.
They are also suffering “dreadful consequences” in Portugal - including being unable to register for health care, difficulties registering a child’s birth and obstacles when it comes to family reunification, she says.
Nicola Franks, a British resident in Portugal, told Portuguese TV channel SIC that she was turned back when flying to Amsterdam three years after her move abroad with her husband.
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“We knew of the deadline and wanted to get here well in advance and make sure we had all our paperwork done and didn’t leave everything till the last minute," she said.
“In June I was stopped after flying to Amsterdam and told as I tried to enter Holland I had overstayed my visa.
“The border control official looked at these papers he had obviously never seen before and decided they were not legitimate, that in fact they were only applications for residency.
“To make a long and frightening story as short as possible, he turned me back to Portugal.
“He told me everyone in the UK has a residency card. I told him Portugal has not got around to issuing them and he kind of laughed and said he was talking and I should be listening and that was the end of his listening.”
She added: “I don’t go to the local clinic which has great doctors and good people. I showed my QR code to them and they said: ‘You’re not a resident, you need to pay’."
The Portuguese Border and Immigration Service’s are failing to to issue WA biometric cards needed by every UK national under the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, expats have claimed.
On mainland Portugal only a temporary document and QR code has been issued, which affected Brits say is not recognised locally or at international borders.
Tig says she knows many people who have encountered similar problems to Nicola and that they had been stopped in "every single European country".
“They’ve had their papers taken off them, they’ve had them thrown to the floor because they are simply not the withdrawal agreement biometric cards that the Portuguese Border and Immigration Service are failing to give us and are directed under the withdrawal agreement to do so," she said.
Tig claims the problem has severely affected those who arrived before the Brexit agreement kicked in at the start of 2021 and were unable to obtain residency from immigration offices due to the pandemic.
She said: “The process needed for UK nationals to register for residency took months to be put in place and, prior to that, caused a great deal of difficulties specifically for those arriving just before the end of 2020 who were not allowed to obtain any residency documentation.
“This meant they were unable to sign work contracts with many being threatened with retraction of them including, most notably, five easyjet pilots who had moved to Portugal with their families solely for that purpose.
“People were not only unable to obtain work but were not permitted to register for health care, social security, at banks, the tax office, every known institution in Portugal.
“Many stopped at Portuguese borders were being threatened with deportation.
“Finally they were allowed to register for residency and a system put in place where a QR code was given stating that all were legally resident in Portugal but it wasn’t the WA biometric card needed by every UK national coming under the withdrawal agreement.
“I have been promised the cards would be arriving soon since July 2019 and that has been the unvarying reply since.
“The reasons for the three year delay by the immigration department? Staff shortages, holiday periods, the pandemic, and now Ukrainian refugees."
Tig claimed that one UK national she had spoken to had submitted her application seven times because her documents were lost in the system.
“Two people were recently detained in Germany because of out of date residency documentation," she said.
“The two people in Germany had to purchase other return tickets as they were told they were not allowed to return through Germany costing them approximately £4,200.
“They are now waiting to see if and when they have a court date in Germany having had to employ a German immigration lawyer when they have done everything legally and as they were told to do.”
A pilot scheme to provide British expats with their long-awaited biometric cards, known as WABC’s, began in the Azores and Madeira in February of this year.
A similar scheme has not been launched on mainland Portugal and experts reckon around 60,000 UK nationals living in Portugal are still waiting for them.
One British national who asked not to be named said: “There are thousands of British people with husbands and wives and children who are almost landlocked in Portugal because there is no way forward.”
An SEF spokesman said the current residency documents of British citizens living in Portugal continue to be accepted
“The document with the QR can be used whenever they travel, as proof of their residence in Portugal, guaranteeing also access to public health services and social security benefits," they said.
“This document containing the QR code was disclosed in a timely way to the relevant European authorities, assuring the holders all the rights contained in the Withdrawal Agreement.”
A UK government spokesperson said in a statement: “We continue to urge the Portuguese government to complete the process of issuing biometric residency cards to UK nationals living legally in Portugal without further delay.
“Portugal must immediately and fully implement the withdrawal agreement commitments it signed up to in 2018 so UK nationals have the security they need.”
