Renewing Temporary Residencies is a horrendous burden.
Because Portugal is granting only Temporary Residencies to Canadians, the Residency permits must be renewed every 2-3 years. This renewal process is completely broken.
When you do all the work in Canada to submit your documents to get your D7 or D8 visa, they only give you a four month visa stamped in your passport. The embassy or consulate may also give you an appointment a “biometrics appointment” to get your Temporary Resident Card. This is disingenuous. It is not a just a “biometrics appointment”, it is an application for a 2 year Visa which requires all the same documentation as you presented in Canada, but updated. You will notice that the appointment date that they give you will be well after your 4 month visa expires. What they also neglect to tell you is that processing times after this appointment can take 6 months or up to a year, if they approve you.
During this time you are illegal from an EU immigration perspective and cannot leave or re-enter the country. You cannot talk to customs about any goods you have shipped from Canada, you cannot exchange a driver’s license, you have no legal status in Europe and you cannot leave and re-enter the country.
If something goes wrong with the process and you do not receive your card in the mail, you have no recourse. They don’t answer emails, they don’t pick up the phone, and there are police stationed at the entrance to the appointment office who do not let anyone in without an appointment. I know this from personal experience: it is a hellish humiliation.
At the end of the term of the Temporary Residency Card, this process is repeated. You may get an appointment assigned to you a few months after your card has expired, and you have to apply again, with all the same documentation you provided Canada, and they will either approve or deny your renewal, and if approved, they will send you a card in the mail, hopefully. During this time, you are again without legal status in Europe, and cannot enter or leave the EU. This new law is meant to keep us in this state for decades.
So the fact that this new residency law now states that time spent in this country “illegally” does not count towards the 10 years adds insult to injury. It is designed to make you flee the country, and it is succeeding. The inefficiencies of the Resident Card renewal process make living here without citizenship for a decade almost impossible, as there will be long stretches of time where you are unable to leave and re-enter the EU.
Finally, it takes the government 1-2 years minimum to approve a citizenship application, during which time your status is also in limbo. So between the difficulty in getting a Resident Card, and the difficulty in getting citizenship once you apply, the real timelines for citizenship is more like 12 to 13 years, a good part of which you are trapped in legal limbo without rights, dignity or certainty.