27,000 voluntary departure notices issued to immigrants this year

The government has issued about 27,000 voluntary departure notices to foreign nationals this year following the processing of pending regularization cases, though only about 800 of those have been carried out. Minister António Leitão Amaro noted that under recent rule changes, the voluntary departure notice is being replaced by a direct duty to leave, failure of which allows police to detain individuals for forced removal. Additionally, authorities have scheduled 30,000 golden visa (ARI) requests this year and report an 85% drop in new immigrant entries following the end of expressions of interest.