Portugal’s caretaker government plans to expel some 18,000 foreigners living in the country without authorization, a minister said Saturday in the buildup to a national election.
Portugal has been caught up in the rising European tide of populism, with its far-right Chega party surging into third place in last year’s election.
While it is true that Brazilians with Portuguese ancestry get some preferential treatment for immigration, it is far from what you describe. And I highly doubt those are people that crossed the border covertly, as the government wouldn’t know were they live then. It is far more likely that these are people that came legally to Portugal, have an official address and for some reason lost their visa status but were tolerated to stay. But it might indeed be retired post-brexit British people or some digital nomads.
Iirc Portugal is giving out a lot of temporary work visa to e.g. Nepalese fruit pickers who must then dutifully serve their masters picking raspberries for multiple years to get a chance at a citizenship. Those would seem to be the kind of people ejected first/most easily.