Some cases are not won on the merits of the application at all, they are won by removing something standing in front of it. This is one of those, and it is worth setting out because the obstacle involved is one most people have never heard of until it stops them.
Our client came to us with a problem he could not get past. He had applied for residence in Portugal, met every criterion, and was ready to start again in a new country. The Portuguese authorities were not refusing him on his merits. They were refusing him because a SIS alert entered by the Danish Immigration Service was still live.
The obstacle: an alert in a shared system
The Schengen Information System is exactly that, shared. When one member state registers an alert against a person, such as a refusal of entry or residence, the other member states are legally bound by it. They cannot issue a residence permit while the alert stands, regardless of what they think of the applicant themselves.
So Portugal had no objection to our client and no discretion either. Denmark’s entry in the system decided the matter from a thousand miles away, and his life stayed on hold while it did.
The approach: challenge the entry, not the refusal
SIS alerts are serious, but they are not immovable. An alert issued incorrectly, disproportionately, or without a continuing legal basis can be removed, which meant the case to run was against the Danish entry rather than the Portuguese decision.
Having gone through the file, we concluded there was a solid basis for that challenge, and prepared a structured submission arguing it. The evidence and the legal reasoning went to three points:
- the alert was preventing our client from exercising rights available to him in another EU member state
- it was no longer necessary, proportionate or justified under EU law
- and leaving it in place created a disproportionate barrier to residence in Portugal.
From there it was preparation and persistence, following the submission through until it was decided.
The outcome
The authorities accepted the argument and removed the alert.
That was the whole case. Once the entry disappeared from the Schengen Information System, Portugal was no longer constrained by another state’s registration, and the residence permit our client had already qualified for was issued shortly afterwards.
Nothing about his eligibility had changed. Only the obstacle had.
Why this comes up more often than you would think
Three things are worth taking from it:
- No Schengen state can issue a residence permit while another state’s SIS alert is active against the applicant.
- Meeting every requirement in the destination country makes no difference, the alert is a complete legal block until it is dealt with.
- Many people have no idea an alert exists against them, and others assume a new country will simply look past it. Neither assumption survives contact with the system.
Working out why an alert was entered, whether it can be challenged, and on what grounds, is not something an applicant can realistically do alone. In this case, that intervention was the difference between an indefinite wait and a residence permit.
