More than 27,000 immigrants were informed, this year, that they should leave Portugal. However, only around 800 complied with the voluntary departure notice, according to figures provided by the Minister
The post More than 27,000 immigrants notified to leave Portugal so far this year: only 800 have left appeared first on Portugal Resident.
With the PM having broken his silence to praise police actions, Portugal’s PSP (Public Security Police) force has today published a video showing incidents of violence directed towards them during
The post PSP publish video showing violence directed against them during housing protests appeared first on Portugal Resident.
Prime minister Luís Montenegro has finally broken his silence of recent days – but it is unlikely that opposition parties heard what they were hoping for. The leader of the
The post PM praises police actions during housing protests, saying PSP acted with proportionality appeared first on Portugal Resident.
Police officers are preparing a demonstration for Thursday, in Lisbon, to demand better working conditions and pay – and ironically, the housing crisis is intrinsically involved: unions warn that the
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On Monday, two high-ranking officers from the Spanish security forces testified before the judge investigating the mass entry of migrants into Ceuta, stating that Moroccan agents stood idly by during the events of July 30 and 31, and that some actively facilitated the passage of people into the Spanish city. According to legal sources cited by EFE, more than 72,000 people entered from Morocco over those two days.
RELATED:
Morocco Tightens Ceuta Border Security Amid Calls for New Mass Crossing
A lieutenant colonel of the Guardia Civil—who serves as head of operations for the Ceuta Command—and a chief inspector of the National Police in the autonomous city provided testimony to the magistrate overseeing the case regarding the migration crisis. Both linked the actions of the Moroccan authorities to the mass influx of migrants.
The National Police chief inspector asserted that Moroccan agents facilitated the crossing into Ceuta. He described uniformed personnel—dressed in gray and khaki—as well as individuals in plainclothes, gesturing for the migrants to move forward. He also claimed to have seen people directing a very long line from Morocco toward Spain.
For his part, the Guardia Civil lieutenant colonel maintained that Moroccan military personnel stood by with their arms at their sides during the influx. He noted that while they took an active stance toward sub-Saharan migrants attempting to cross, they remained passive when it came to their own compatriots.
The Guardia Civil officer recounted that other agents allegedly directed people from the beach toward the breakwater that separates Ceuta from Morocco. He indicated that the Moroccan military steered migrants into the water, forcing Spanish security personnel to pull individuals from the sea to save their lives.
MASS MIGRATION: Insane footage shows thousands of migrants entering Spain from Morocco pic.twitter.com/WHDbDEmPML
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) July 30, 2026
Furthermore, he claimed to have seen Moroccan vessels picking up people during the influx and subsequently dropping them off on the beach. He explained that these were small craft, as larger vessels could not approach the coast.
On the night before the mass entry, the lieutenant colonel stated that he had spotted six Moroccan vessels: two patrol boats, two interceptors, and two smaller craft. The officer noted that it was striking that, on a day with fog, there were six Moroccan Navy vessels in the area.
He also stated that he had received no warning regarding a mass entry planned for July 30. He pointed out that prior coordination meetings were not held for that purpose, and that it was never communicated to him that there was a planned influx for Throne Day—a national holiday in Morocco.
A National Police inspector explained that, overall, the arrival of migrants had increased three- to fourfold compared to previous years. However, he noted that in the days leading up to the events, the increase had been exponential.
The investigation seeks to clarify the circumstances surrounding the mass entry of migrants into Ceuta—one of the most significant border crises between Spain and Morocco in recent years.
An independent review into Henry Nowak’s murder announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will investigate whether police failed to act on his Sikh killer's obsession with religious knives over racism fears.
The post Review into Murder of Henry Nowak to Examine if Racism Fears Played Part in Police Conduct appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The president of Portugal’s Bar Association believes an inquiry must be carried out into the security forces’ actions at the protest camps in Lisbon and Porto on Sunday, as the
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Politicians of all colours are reacting in a form of stampede to the scenes of violence in Lisbon and Porto last night – but the overall focus is on the
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© Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
The silence of Portugal’s minority AD government in the face of ‘right to housing protests’, and the indignation arising from last night’s police charge on protesters, has seen LIVRE (left
The post Housing crisis: LIVRE calls for strong position from President Seguro appeared first on Portugal Resident.
Is there an exception to the 5th Amendment's promise that government cannot take private property without "just compensation"? The Supreme Court declined to address that question this past Monday when it rejected a trio of petitions asking the justices to consider whether people should be compensated when law enforcement seizes or destroys their property.
Two of the cases concerned individuals who were not accused of a crime but whose property nevertheless became collateral damage as police pursued a suspect. In June 2022, police fired 30 tear gas canisters into Amy Hadley's home in South Bend, Indiana. Officers smashed windows, tore down security cameras, ransacked furniture, ripped down a panel and a fan, and punched holes in the walls as they searched for a fugitive named John Parnell Thomas, who had never been there. The police had erroneously concluded that Thomas accessed the internet via the IP address at Hadley's home. According to Hadley, the police caused at least $16,000 in damages, which insurance only partially covered.
About two months later, a SWAT team in Los Angeles arrived at Carlos Pena's North Hollywood printing business and destroyed it, along with his equipment inside, crippling his livelihood after a fugitive broke in and barricaded himself in the shop. (The suspect ultimately escaped.) Pena alleged approximately $60,000 in damages in his suit against the city, which declined to compensate him for his losses. His insurance also refused to step in—as is common in such cases, as policies often exclude damage caused by the government.
The third petition concerned Chicago drivers whose vehicles were seized by the city over modest unpaid parking tickets. Ryan O'Donnell's vehicle was impounded and sold for scrap because of about $524 in debt. Michael Goree's was seized and relinquished to the lienholder over a debt that did not belong to him; the $560 in unpaid tickets were for a different vehicle owned by his co-signer.
In all of these cases the lower courts' reasoning came from a similar place. Hadley, O'Donnell, and Goree's petitions were heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which has adopted a categorical rule: Property destroyed in the exercise of "police power" is immune to claims under the Takings Clause, the U.S. Constitution's pledge that government cannot usurp private property without fairly compensating the owner. Pena's case went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, where the judges have declined to issue such a sweeping exception but have instead ruled that governments are exempt from paying out claims when the police actions in question were "necessary."
In a statement, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, outlined the many inconsistencies between the circuits on the topic. "It is still an 'open question' whether these or any other approaches are consistent with this Court's precedents. Few of these decisions likewise explain the source of any such police-power exception to the Takings Clause—whether the common law, the Constitution, or elsewhere," she wrote. "Such questions thus continue to 'benefit from further percolation' in the lower courts before this Court chooses to intervene."
Sotomayor was quoting herself. In 2024, she released similar remarks in response to a petition from Texas woman Vicki Baker, whose house in McKinney had been hollowed by a SWAT team attempting to capture a fugitive. The high court declined to hear Baker's case, although she finally found relief under the Texas state constitution this year.
"It's possible that the Court sincerely doesn't think the lower courts have done enough thinking on this important but novel issue," Patrick Jaicomo, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice who represented Hadley, tells me. "Still, we've brought them 5 cases from 5 circuits. How much more percolation is needed?…The Court is going to have to address this important issue, and it's not clear what another circuit decision or 6 might do to aid that consideration."
Though Sotomayor's statement ran in parallel to the one two years ago, its slightly sharper warning intimated that we may be inching closer to a resolution. "I again encourage courts considering this issue to take care," she wrote, "that due deference to state police powers does not eclipse constitutional rights."
The post Police Destroyed Their Homes and Businesses. The Supreme Court Won't Say Who Should Pay. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Police charged housing protesters in Lisbon and Porto early on Sunday, clearing two city-centre encampments in operations that organisers say left dozens injured, including some people with serious injuries. Thirty-one
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© Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The PSP has today deployed police forces to monitor demonstrations for the right to housing in various towns and cities across the country – with particular focus on Lisbon and
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West Des Moines, Iowa—Iowa voters may disagree on immigration, taxes, and the economy, but government surveillance is drawing opposition from across the political spectrum.
An Emerson College poll of 750 likely Iowa voters, conducted between late August and early September, found that 61 percent opposed police use of automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, compared with 26 percent in support.
The backlash comes as police departments across the state increasingly rely on surveillance technology supplied by private companies such as Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions. Their cameras record license plates and vehicle information, feeding searchable databases that allow law enforcement to piece together motorists' movements, including those of people suspected of no crime.
As Iowa's gubernatorial and congressional campaigns enter their final stretch, voters are increasingly pressing candidates on whether they intend to place limits on the technology. Jacqueline Thompson, an ordained elder in the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church and a self-described centrist Democrat, said she has been concerned about government surveillance for years.
"It's always been important to me [and] I've always thought that was a problem," she said before a campaign rally at a senior living community in Des Moines earlier this month. "So, when people started jumping on the bandwagon saying it, I was like, 'Hello, I've been here already!'"
Thompson pointed to two Democratic candidates, Nate Willems, who is running for Iowa attorney general, and Taylor Wettach, a candidate for state auditor, as having caught her attention with their emphasis on corporate oversight and access to government records.
For Thompson, the renewed attention to privacy is a welcome development in a political environment where Democrats and Republicans rarely find common ground. "It's kind of nice to hear the people come back to the middle [and discuss this]," she said.
Police surveillance technology has spread across Iowa faster than the rules governing its use.
A recent study identified at least 62 Iowa law enforcement agencies that had accessed other agencies' Flock databases, including departments that did not operate cameras of their own. Police departments can therefore search information collected well beyond their jurisdictions without having to install a single camera themselves. The study (led by Megan Graham, a clinical associate professor and director of the Technology Law Clinic at the University of Iowa College of Law) found significant gaps in transparency surrounding ALPRs.
The constitutional implications are already being tested in court. On October 1, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that a sheriff's deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching a motorist's location history through automated license plate reader systems operated by Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions without a warrant.
The search turned up more than 50 records of the driver's whereabouts across multiple states over a month. In the 38-page ruling, the judge ordered the resulting evidence suppressed, describing the technology as a form of "indiscriminate mass surveillance." The decision is not binding in Iowa, and legal challenges to ALPR surveillance still face an uphill battle, but it adds to the legal scrutiny of police tracking motorists without warrants.
The University of Iowa study also raised concerns about unauthorized database access, erroneous alerts, and the potential use of locally collected information for federal immigration enforcement.
Flock Safety says it has not provided U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol with direct access to its systems. But the researchers found that local law enforcement agencies elsewhere in the country had conducted searches on behalf of federal authorities, effectively allowing them to obtain information without direct access.
Taxpayers are also footing the bill. Cedar Rapids reported operating 76 cameras at a combined average cost of more than $20,000 a month, according to the study.
Researchers struggled to determine the full extent of surveillance across Iowa. Some agencies refused to disclose the number or locations of their cameras, while others withheld records concerning unauthorized access or erroneous alerts, citing confidentiality.
The cameras are not limited to Iowa's largest cities. Becca Eastwood, deputy policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said they have spread across large, midsize, and smaller communities, prompting a surge in opposition over the past year.
The backlash "has just exploded, like no other issue that I have seen in my time at the ACLU," Eastwood told Reason in an interview. Candidates running for state and federal offices are increasingly getting asked if they support police departments using ALPR cameras, she said.
Some local governments are already reconsidering their contracts. Indianola and Waukee suspended their Flock camera arrangements, Iowa Public Radio reported in August. Dallas County paused a planned rollout while awaiting guidance from state lawmakers. Ankeny, which operates 16 Flock cameras, is reportedly expected to reconsider a possible contract extension next year.
The backlash also cuts across the immigration debate. While concerns about federal immigration enforcement have helped draw attention to the cameras, critics argue the same surveillance infrastructure can be used against anyone, regardless of which party controls the government.
"This is a nonpartisan issue because people recognize that surveillance can be weaponized against anyone the government wants to weaponize it against," Eastwood said. "An increase in police surveillance impacts certain populations more, right now [but] nobody is immune."
The opposition is beginning to force Iowa's candidates to take positions on a technology that, until recently, attracted relatively little attention outside law enforcement and civil liberties circles.
Among the gubernatorial candidates, interviewed by Iowa Radio last month, Republican Zach Lahn has called for state-level regulation, arguing that the widespread collection of information about where people drive is unacceptable. Meanwhile, Democrat Rob Sand has expressed support for safeguards governing the collection and use of license plate data and said he would sign legislation if privacy concerns persisted. But he has also pointed to the cancellation of some Flock contracts as evidence that the market is responding to public concerns.
For now, neither approach offers much clarity on whether police should be required to obtain warrants before searching motorists' location histories or how far restrictions on data collection should go.
Ryan Johnson, a libertarian-leaning Republican who works as a machinist near Waterloo, said he could accept cameras in certain locations, such as downtown areas or near traffic signals. But he objects to their spread into residential neighborhoods and public spaces.
"Just having Flock cameras everywhere, [in] residential [areas], putting them at parks and pools, we don't need that," Johnson said while attending a Lahn rally earlier this month.
So far, some of the most concrete changes to ALPR practices have come from Flock itself. In August, the company announced that it would reduce its default data-retention period from 30 days to seven and require officers to enter a criminal case number or code for each search. The changes would not, however, require police to obtain a warrant before accessing the records.
Gary and Nancy Guthrie, a Democratic couple attending a Des Moines rally supporting Chris Jones for secretary of agriculture, remain skeptical of the cameras.
"I don't have a good feel for that," Nancy Guthrie said. "Personally, I'm very much against Flock cameras."
For all the attention the issue is receiving on the campaign trail, Iowa voters have yet to hear much about what legal limits candidates would actually impose on police surveillance.
The post Iowa Voters Don't Want Police or Flock Tracking Their Cars. Politicians Are Still Catching Up. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
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