Portugal participates in intra-EU relocation schemes, such as the relocation of asylum seekers from Italy and Malta (since 2018) and the relocation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from Greece (since 2020). In 2021, the Portuguese Government introduced a humanitarian admission scheme for people fleeing Afghanistan.
What is relocation?
Relocation is a mechanism through which EU Member States express solidarity with other EU Member States by transferring asylum applicants from a country that typically receives proportionally large numbers of asylum seekers to another country that accepts to take over the examination of their asylum application and by transferring recognized refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection to another EU Member State where they will be granted similar protection.
What is humanitarian admission?
In Portugal, the term humanitarian admission is applied to the emergency pathway of admission of individuals fleeing Afghanistan since August 2021.
I came to Portugal through relocation/humanitarian admission. Does it mean I am recognized as a refugee in Portugal? Am I granted a permanent residency?
If you arrived in Portugal under a relocation programme as an asylum-seeker or under a humanitarian admission scheme, this does not mean that you will be automatically granted a refugee or subsidiary protection status. Within the relocation and humanitarian admission schemes (for example, relocation from Italy, Malta or Greece, or humanitarian evacuation and admission of people fleeing Afghanistan), Portugal accepts to admit you to the territory and analyse your asylum case. This, however, does not grant you refugee status and does not mean that the result of the application will be positive. In relocation and humanitarian admission, the majority of the rules of the asylum procedure apply.
