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IRR > European Race Bulletin > Portugal > Asylum seekers and refugees
About 105000 Macanese - more than a fifth of the population of the six-square mile territory - will be given Portuguese passports with the right to live in Portugal or elsewhere in the European Union after the handover.
It is the police who are leading criticism of what is described as an 'open door' immigration policy, warning that Macanese criminal gangs are involved in human smuggling and the trade in fake identity papers and passports. Many Macanese lured to the west are forced to work for the criminal triads. Some sources suggest that up to 3 per cent of Chinese citizens from Macau are involved in triads, either voluntarily or under duress, and that between 600 and 1000 triad members could be expected to take up permanent residence in Portugal. Triads are also said to be behind a network of agencies operating to facilitate arranged marriages in order to gain citizenship at the cost of up to 1000 contos (£4400). Portugal's secret services say that they warned in June 1993 that ethnic Chinese triads planned to take over entire districts with areas where a Chinatown already existed - Maia in Porto, Oeiras and Marvila in Lisbon and Merola were particularly at risk.
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© Institute of Race Relations 1996
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