Key figures — as of 2026-08-13: President António José Seguro referred Decree 105/XVII to the Constitutional Court on Friday 7 August 2026, challenging 11 norms — the Court has until 31 August 2026 (a 25-day constitutional deadline) to rule — parliament had passed the decree on 17 July 2026 — maximum administrative detention for irregular migrants would rise from today's 60 days to an initial 180 days, extendable to 360.
A law stuck in mid-air
Portugal's newest overhaul of the Foreigners' Law and the Asylum Law is on hold, again. President António José Seguro sent the Assembly's Decree 105/XVII to the Constitutional Court and asked for preventive review of 11 norms covering expulsion, detention, children and asylum. Until the judges rule, none of it takes effect — the request for preventive review suspends the decree until the Constitutional Court decides.
That is the practical headline for anyone currently going through AIMA: the tightened rules everyone has been bracing for since the government's return-law push earlier this year are not law yet, and may never be, at least not in their current form.
What Seguro is actually flagging
Seguro asked the Constitutional Court to review the decree that alters the reception regime for foreigners and stateless people, the rules on entry, stay, exit and removal of foreigners, and the granting of asylum. His office was careful to frame this as a check on method, not a rejection of the policy goal — the President reiterated the need to fight illegal immigration and control legal immigration effectively while insisting that border security is not incompatible with human dignity.
The specific sticking points are stark. Among the points questioned by Seguro are the possibility of expelling foreigners who have Portuguese minor children resident in the country, the removal of foreign children under five born in Portugal, and the increase in administrative detention time. On the detention question specifically, the President attaches enormous importance to protecting family and children, and some of the decree's legislative solutions raise serious doubts about whether the child's best interests are safeguarded — namely by allowing separation between parents and Portuguese minor children, or the indirect expulsion of those children.
The numbers behind the detention change are the most eye-catching part of the package. The current 60-day limit becomes an initial 180-day period, renewable up to 360 days if the foreign citizen fails to cooperate or documentation is delayed, with a further 180 days potentially added for effective removal — bringing total detention to as much as a year and a half. An earlier version of the bill would also have imposed a re-entry ban of up to 20 years, but the government dropped that in favour of keeping the existing five-year interdiction, which can run longer where there is a serious threat to public order or security.
GrowIN's read: a sixfold jump, on paper
Strip away the politics and the arithmetic is simple: raising the detention cap from 60 days to 360 days is a sixfold increase in how long someone can be held in a temporary installation centre while their removal case is processed — before even counting the extra 180-day window for enforcing an actual departure. That is the scale of change the Constitutional Court is being asked to weigh against constitutional guarantees on liberty, family life and children's rights. It also explains why this file keeps landing on the President's desk in August rather than quietly passing into force.
Not the first round, and not likely the last
This is the second time in just over a year that a piece of this reform has hit Palácio Ratton. The first version, reviewed a year earlier, saw five of the seven challenged norms found at odds with the Constitution. That earlier ruling also coincided with turnover on the bench: the then vice-president suggested some judges had ruled on the basis of personal convictions, and weeks later left the Court — the first of four judges to depart in the following months. Four new judges took office on 15 June 2026, adding a further layer of uncertainty to how this second round will be decided.
Parliamentary arithmetic hasn't shifted much either. The Assembly gave final approval to the decree on 17 July, with PSD, Iniciativa Liberal and CDS-PP voting in favour, Chega abstaining, and PS, Livre, PCP, Bloco de Esquerda, PAN and JPP voting against. Immigrant-rights groups have welcomed the referral: Timóteo Macedo of Solidariedade Imigrante told Lusa the President "did no more than his duty" faced with a badly drafted law that strips away rights.
GrowIN Portugal Editorial: for the second time in a year, Portugal's toughest immigration reform in a generation has stalled at the same constitutional checkpoint.
What to watch next
The Constitutional Court's window closes on 31 August 2026 — expect a ruling, or a partial one, right at the deadline, as happened last year. If judges strike down provisions, the decree bounces back to Parliament for amendment, exactly as the family-reunification chapter did in 2025. If it clears review, Seguro can still promulgate with a note of political dissent, or send it back for a second look. Either way, current AIMA procedures, detention limits and asylum rules remain those already in force — nothing changes for pending cases until Lisbon says so. Foreigners with active AIMA files, pending asylum claims or upcoming residence renewals should keep tracking this through our visas hub and treat any "new rules" reporting before an official promulgation date with caution.
For now, Portugal's immigration framework stays exactly where it was — tightened on paper, unresolved in practice.