Portugal’s nationalist presidential candidate André Ventura has said he would veto any attempt by the Portuguese parliament to follow neighboring Spain in regularizing large numbers of illegal immigrants, as immigration became a key issue in the final days of the presidential campaign.
Speaking during the final televized debate ahead of the Feb. 8 run-off election, Ventura attacked the Spanish socialist government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over its decision to legalize an estimated 500,000 migrants. He said there simply “cannot be a mass entry of people in such a way,” warning that Portugal must not replicate what he described as Spain’s approach.
Ventura’s socialist opponent, António José Seguro, declined to rule out a similar policy in Portugal. He argued that immigration needed to be managed pragmatically, stressing the importance of state oversight. He said it was necessary to “control and regulate the entry of immigrants” and to ensure organization “at the level of reception and integration.” Seguro added that economic realities could not be ignored, asking, “If there is a need and an emergency in the sense that our economy requires more labor and that labor does not exist in the country, what is the solution? Does the country shut down?” He also pointed to the fiscal role of migrants, claiming that “immigrants in Portugal make an indispensable contribution, for example, to Social Security.”
As reported by Entrerios, Ventura said the remarks showed Seguro “clearly shows how unprepared he is for the job.” The Chega leader accused his rival of not even understanding the constitutional role of the presidency, adding that Seguro did not know “what he is supposed to do if that happened. Whether to enact it or not, whether to veto it, whether to re-analyze it, whether to send it back to parliament again.”
The debate in Portugal has coincided with an increasingly heated political debate in Spain following Sánchez’s announcement. The move has prompted a fierce backlash from Spanish nationalists, particularly the right-wing Vox party, which has accused the prime minister of seeking to engineer demographic change, or population replacement, for political gain. Vox leader Santiago Abascal told supporters that Sánchez was “hated by the Spanish” and claimed, “His own people hate him, so he decides they must be replaced. They give them some benefits to keep them happy, and then they are ready to vote for the left.”
🇪🇸🔴 Spain's Vox Party leader says he will back national strike actions after Spain's Socialist government moves to legalize 500,000 migrants.
"After 46 deaths, immediately after 46 deadly victims of this government’s corruption, Sánchez announces the regularization process for… pic.twitter.com/E3VtHMC6Ia
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) January 28, 2026Abascal said Vox would support national strike action in response to the regularization plan. He linked the decision to broader allegations of corruption against the socialist government, which he blamed for failures in Spain’s rail network following a number of high-profile fatal crashes in the last month.
“After 46 deaths, immediately after 46 deadly victims of this government’s corruption, Sánchez announces the regularization process for half a million illegal immigrants,” Abascal said. “Corruption kills, as we have seen. Sánchez’s Mafia is directly implicated in the horror and chaos of the rail network. And invasion also kills.”
“This half a million regularizations will lead to millions more, which will further aggravate the collapse of health, housing, and security. We Spaniards have to react,” he added.
Ventura has long been an outspoken critic of the current Spanish government. At a Patriots for Europe rally held in September last year, the Portuguese presidential candidate called for Sánchez to be “sent to jail” for betraying his homeland on the economy, migration, and for facilitating ongoing alleged corruption.
