Key figures — as of 2026-08-09: Legal deadline for AIMA to decide family reunification cases: 90 working days — actual wait in this case: ≈2 years — Kauê Matos was 17 when his family applied and 19 when deported — Portuguese courts have already ordered AIMA to honour 17,000 overdue appointments nationwide.
A two-year wait that outlasted his childhood
A 19-year-old Brazilian student was put on a flight out of Portugal after immigration agency AIMA sat on his family's case for roughly two years — long enough for him to turn 19 and lose the one legal pathway his parents had been counting on. Kauê Matos was placed on a flight to Brazil after delays by immigration agency AIMA prevented his family from regularising his status in time, spending four days detained in the international area of Lisbon airport before removal. He is now staying with his maternal grandmother in São Paulo state, described as "deeply shaken" by the separation from his parents and brother, who remain in Portugal.
The mechanics of the case are what make it a warning for every family navigating AIMA's back-office. Kauê arrived in Portugal at the age of 17, and his parents applied for residence permits under the former expression of interest system, intending to follow this with a family reunification application for their eldest son while he was still a minor. That intention should have been straightforward. Instead, AIMA was legally required to decide such cases within 90 working days, according to family lawyer Renato Teixeira, yet the family waited approximately two years for a response.
Aged out before the paperwork moved
By the time AIMA finally acted, the calendar had already decided the outcome. By the time the decision came, Kauê was 19 and had lost the right to qualify for family reunification as a minor, leaving a student residence permit — tied to his enrolment in secondary school in Figueira da Foz — as his remaining option.
That fallback route was also blocked. AIMA had removed the relevant application facility from its online platform, leaving applicants to seek a court order simply to obtain an appointment, and Kauê's parents — unable to afford legal representation — spent months trying to reach AIMA by phone and email without success. While the family's case sat unresolved, ordinary life continued: the teenager received a scholarship from his school to take part in an Erasmus programme in Ireland. It was on his return to Portugal that immigration control caught up with a status that had, on paper, quietly expired.
His legal team is now working from abroad rather than accepting the removal as final. His defence is waiting for the courts to rule on the outstanding cases before deciding how to bring him back to Portugal, with options including a student visa via the Portuguese consulate in Brazil or return if AIMA is ordered to schedule the appointment his family had been unable to obtain.
Not an isolated glitch
This isn't a one-off scheduling error — it's a symptom of a system already under judicial pressure. AIMA's president has said the Portuguese justice system has already imposed 17,000 court-ordered meetings with immigrants, admitting a "significant delay on the part of the administration in scheduling and responding to requests." AIMA has said family reunification processes will begin accelerating from October, with priority over golden-visa-related residence changes.
GrowIN Portugal analysis: the 90-working-day legal deadline for a family reunification decision works out to roughly 18 calendar weeks. This family waited around 104 weeks — nearly six times the statutory limit. For a minor sitting within roughly two years of their 18th birthday when a family case is filed, that gap alone is enough to turn a compliant, in-process applicant into an undocumented adult through no fault of their own.
"A teenager who did everything right on paper was removed because the state's own clock ran out first," says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
What families should watch
Families with a minor approaching 18 while any AIMA case — reunification, renewal, or otherwise — remains open should treat the birthday as a hard deadline, not the agency's. Practical steps: keep dated proof of every submission and follow-up attempt; consult a lawyer early enough to seek a court-ordered appointment if AIMA's portal has removed the relevant application track, as happened here; and where a minor turns 18 mid-process, ask a lawyer immediately whether a student or other independent residence route needs filing in parallel, rather than sequentially, to avoid a status gap. Our visas hub covers the current family reunification and student permit routes and where the online scheduling system currently stands. Anyone facing a similar age-out risk should get professional legal advice without delay — AIMA outcomes, and court intervention timelines, are never guaranteed.
What happens next in Kauê's case — whether the courts order AIMA to retroactively honour the missed appointment, or whether he must restart from Brazil via a student visa — will likely shape how lawyers argue similar age-out cases going forward.