How did we actually end up messing with issuing a Portuguese passport to the descendants of those deported from Spain (members of the Eastern, North African and Balkan ethnic groups)?

When a relative of Eliran told him that he was taking out a Portuguese passport because of his Moroccan origin, it sounded strange to him. He started looking into the issue and discovered that he could indeed issue a Portuguese passport, but that the process was long and required a lot of work. Eliran checked the Internet and discovered that many lawyers offer their services in assisting in this process and contacted his friend, lawyer Amit Stein, in order to consult with him on the matter.

Amit, who was not yet familiar with the subject, began to research and study it. When he read the Portuguese law and the background to its legislation, he realized that there was an unprecedented case here – a European country, a member of the European Union, allows Jews to obtain citizenship if they can only prove that they are descendants of those deported from Spain. Because Spanish deportees arrived in many countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, Algeria and more, almost everyone whose family immigrated from these countries is entitled to receive a passport.

Amit contacted a Portuguese lawyer with whom he had cooperated in the past, and together they researched the issue and the process and helped Eliran and his family carry it out.

First it was necessary to obtain a certificate from the Jewish community confirming that Eliran and his family are descendants of the expulsion from Spain and Portugal. Eliran collected the required documents and Amit submitted them to the Jewish community in Portugal. After a few weeks, the approval was received. Now it remains to submit the application for citizenship to the authorities in Portugal. Here too, all the necessary documents were collected, and after they were translated into Portuguese and received an apostille, they were sent by the Portuguese lawyer who submitted the application to Portugal. After the application was accepted in the system, an application number was received and now all that remains is to wait for the application to be processed in Portugal’s systems (due to a load of applications, a final answer is received only after about a year and a half from the moment the application was submitted).

After we successfully submitted Eliran and his family’s application, other family members and friends turned to us for help. One thing led to another and suddenly we found ourselves handling so many requests that it became a central occupation in our lives. We decided to establish the company Passport Group in order to help as many people as possible to obtain Portuguese citizenship.

Today, after we have already handled many requests, and a larger number of requests are in approval processes, we continue to offer the professional, reliable and best service available on the market.