As part of an assessment of her first months at the head of the Portuguese Consulate General in New York, Luisa Pais Lowe stated that the summer months were used to catch up on work that included civil registration, nationality and visa processes.

"It was six very useful months, of learning and getting to know the community and its value. It was six months in which I carefully planned the creation of conditions to, for example, take the consulate to Portuguese clubs, but also other strategic action initiatives in the economic and cultural areas, which are also part of our mandate", said the diplomat.

"We are now going to start planning the Cultural Activity Plan for the next year. But we had to do something very important, which we all have to do from time to time: we spent the summer catching up on work. Due to a shortage of human resources, work had accumulated and this happens. It is not attributable to anything or anyone", explained the consul, speaking to Lusa in the heart of Manhattan.

According to Luisa Pais Lowe, the civil registration and nationality processes were the ones that accumulated the most delays.

Demand for visas

"We also have a very high demand for visas, because we know that Portugal is in fashion and there are more and more Americans or residents in the United States who want to move to Portugal. Therefore, we have registered a very large increase in work in the area of ​​visas and it was basically on these two aspects that we were working", she detailed.

The number of North Americans residing in Portugal is at the highest level in more than a decade, according to data from the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), cited by Jornal Económico. At the end of 2021, there were 7,000 people born in the United States of America living in the country, twice as many as during the last three years.

Considered strategic, the Consulate General in New York has a mandate that includes not only the provision of consular services, but also work to support the country's promotion in the areas of business and business, culture and the Portuguese language, in work carried out in close coordination with the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP), Turismo de Portugal and Camões – Institute for Cooperation and Language.

About six months after taking office, Luisa Pais Lowe assured that the consulate is at a level where "the work arrives and is done, it does not accumulate" and considered it "gratifying to see the joy and gratitude" with which the consular team is received whenever you travel to cities further away from downtown New York.