Minhaz, a young Bangladeshi construction worker, lives in Lisbon’s Martim Moniz, an area popularly known as “Little India” or “Little Asia” and one of the city’s overcrowded migrant neighbourhoods. He had spent years moving between countries in search of a stable future before reaching Portugal. He first worked in Dubai, returned to Bangladesh, got married, supported his family and then paid a hefty sum to migrate to Portugal. He now shares a room with eight other Bangladeshis, works long hours when work is available and is still trying to repay the cost of leaving home.His story is not the only one.A neighbourhood built on migrationIn recent years, parts of Martim Moniz have come to symbolise both Portugal’s changing multicultural landscape and the country’s increasingly polarised politics surrounding immigration. By evening, the neighbourhood becomes more than a place to live. Restaurants, grocery shops, tea stalls, telecom stores, small hotels and places of worship form an informal support network where newcomers and long-term South Asian residents alike find meals, accommodation, information, work-leads and a sense of community. Long after the journey to Europe has ended, it is here that many migrants begin the more difficult task of building a life.Minhaz’s journey reflects a broader transformation of Portugal’s migration landscape. Over the past decade, people from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan have formed some of the country’s fastest-growing immigrant communities, filling labour shortages in construction, agriculture, hospitality and service industries.Across mini-markets, hotels, community spaces, gurdwaras, mosques and the streets around Martim Moniz, South Asian migrants recounted stories of costly migration, arduous visa processes, opaque consultancy systems, misleading job offers, cramped accommodation, mounting debt and disappointment. Despite these hardships, many still see Portugal as an opening – a place from where a future can begin.Narrowing opportunities for immigrantsFor many South Asians, Portugal has long been imagined as a gateway to Europe. Some arrive as students, others on work or tourist visas, some through family reunification, some after spending years in Gulf countries and others after travelling through difficult routes involving Libya, Serbia, Moscow, Malta, Italy, France and other transit points. Yet, this gateway is becoming narrower. Portugal continues to depend heavily on migrant labour, while making long-term settlement more difficult. Many of the migrants arrived during a period when Portugal was still regarded as one of Europe’s more accessible destinations via the Expression of Interest scheme. That landscape has changed considerably, making the pathways described here harder for future migrants to follow. Ironically, many of the migrants who helped establish Portugal’s reputation as a gateway into Europe may be among the last to have entered under that model.The migration route is not linear. It is a network through which migrants move across shifting regimes of legality, labour and visibility. Many are repeat migrants, having spent years working in Gulf countries before setting their sights on Europe. They worked in construction, hospitality, cleaning and other low-paid sectors that allowed them to survive but offered little chance of long-term stability, residency or meaningful savings. One man recalled putting aside only modest amounts each month despite years of labour. Another had returned home several times before deciding that Europe was his only remaining option. With no pathway to permanent residency, the end of a contract often meant another return home and the beginning of a new search for work elsewhere. The price of legal mobilityPortugal once offered a relatively accessible possibility of residency, but that possibility came at a price. Its migration system shows how legal mobility itself can become commodified, with access to visas, documentation, employment and residency increasingly mediated through markets, intermediaries and debt rather than transparent public institutions. The financial cost begins long before departure. Families often spend several lakh rupees, sometimes the equivalent of €14,000-22,000 or more, on consultancy services, visa applications, travel, accommodation, legal assistance, recruitment agents, and documentation. Many also rely on loans, with interest payments continuing long after arrival and turning migration into a prolonged cycle of debt. Those we spoke to described paying intermediaries to secure appointments, prepare paperwork, arrange travel and obtain job offers, only to discover that the work they had been promised was unavailable, short-lived or very different from what had been advertised. Entering Portugal through legal channels does not necessarily guarantee long-term legal security. When employment ends, contracts collapse or promised jobs fail to materialise, migrants may lose the legal basis on which their residency depends, placing them at risk of falling into irregular status. For families that have borrowed heavily to finance migration, returning home is often financially impossible. Remaining in Portugal, taking informal or precarious work and continuing to repay migration-related debt becomes less a matter of choice than a compulsion for survival. The accounts we heard point to an expensive and opaque migration system in which young migrants have limited information and weak bargaining power.Applicants often need support with language, appointments, contracts, documentation and travel. The problem lies in the imbalance of power between a young person in Sylhet, Jalandhar, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Lahore, Chandigarh, Delhi, who has no means of knowing how to secure a visa appointment, interpret an employer’s offer letter, assess the terms of a contract or verify whether a company is legitimate, and a network of agents, recruiters, consultants, employers, travel facilitators, and documentation brokers.That imbalance becomes even more pronounced when families have borrowed money, sold land, mortgaged jewellery or relied on relatives abroad to finance the journey.For many families, the question is not simply, ‘Should our son go to Portugal?’ Rather, it is, ‘What other option do we have?’ This is what is often missed in discussions about ‘economic migrants’ or people ‘chasing Europe’. Many migrants are making a generational calculation instead of a simple financial one. A young man may spend years earning little in Portugal, but his family may still believe that he has opened a door to a better future. He may eventually obtain residence documents. A sibling may join him later. A cousin may find work through the same network. His children may have access to a ‘better’ education system. The family may gradually gain a degree of social mobility and security that seemed impossible at home. Portugal, then, is not always the destination. It is a legal, social and geographic foothold.Beyond the visa storyMany migrants arrive in a reality very different from what they imagined. They find themselves in low-paid work in construction, restaurants, delivery, retail, hotels, farms or informal labour. They share rooms with several others, work long shifts, and are often paid at minimum wage, even when they have degrees, diplomas or previous international work experience.One migrant with business-related education was working in a souvenir shop. Another with technical training had taken a low-paid telecommunications role. Several had studied at private universities in South Asia or abroad, but were now doing work unrelated to their qualifications. But this is not the familiar migration story of the South Asian IT professional arriving with a corporate contract, a skilled visa and a clear pathway into the middle class. This is a working-class migration story.These migrants are coming to work in construction, on farms, in restaurants, kitchens, hotels, retail shops, warehouses, and delivery services. They are doing work that keeps cities running. They often come from low-income families, marginalised communities, land-less households, or places where education and labour do not offer stable futures. Their first years in Europe are often not spent building savings. They are spent repaying the cost of leaving home.A South Asian migrant worker described how his income had gone towards a wedding, a house, his sister’s marriage, support for his parents, and assistance with his brother’s migration. Another was still repaying the debt he had taken to travel through multiple countries before reaching Portugal. A third had spent months without stable work after arrival and depended on community support before finding employment in construction. Migration is a family project as much as an individual one. A migrant does not leave only for himself. He leaves because an entire family has invested money, hope and expectation in his departure. It is also a predominantly male migration stream, shaped by gendered expectations of work, provision and family responsibility. Migrant movement is tied to an intense expectation that men must earn, remit, build homes, repay loans, support parents, arrange marriages and create a future for the family. For many women, migration begins long before they cross a border. Some remain at home caring for children, managing household finances and coping with debt while waiting for remittances or family reunification. Others arrive later through marriage or family sponsorship. Although men often make the initial journey, migration reshapes the lives of entire families.Networks that sustainCommunity networks become essential here: restaurants provide food, information and initial contacts; small hotels offer cheap beds to new arrivals; friends from the same village or district provide a first room, a work lead or help with documents; and places of worship provide meals, emotional support, social networks and sometimes temporary accommodation. These networks can be life-saving. They are often the difference between immediate homelessness and survival. But they cannot replace transparent recruitment, fair employment, accessible housing, reliable legal advice or accountability for exploitation.The danger lies in the business of migration itself. Young people become commodities in a chain. Their hopes are turned into fees. Their families’ anxiety becomes a market. A European address becomes proof of success, even when the person living there is exhausted, underpaid and still in debt.South Asian governments often speak proudly about remittances. European countries speak about labour shortages, integration and migration management. But somewhere between these official narratives is the migrant who has paid a large amount for a promise that may not materialise.The urgent need is to make migration less dependent on secrecy and exploitation. That requires transparent information about life abroad, public guidance in local languages, access to legal support before migrants leave home, stronger oversight of recruitment agencies and employers, and clear complaint mechanisms for people who are misled, underpaid or trapped in debt.Young migrants in Lisbon are not passive victims. They are resourceful, ambitious and determined. They are trying to support parents, repay debts, build homes, educate younger siblings and create lives with greater dignity.But determination should not be mistaken for protection. Recent changes to Portugal’s immigration and nationality laws have made settlement, family reunification and citizenship more difficult, particularly for lower-skilled migrants. The question now is not simply who can reach Europe, but how much debt, labour and sacrifice working-class migrants must endure before they can build lives of security rather than remain on the margins.Ashok Danavath is a PhD researcher at the University of Amsterdam. His work focuses on caste, higher education, anti-caste thought, structural inequality, epistemic justice and the politics of knowledge production in South Asia and the diaspora.Sarzah Yeasmin holds a Master’s degree in International Education Policy from Harvard University. Her work focuses on education policy, migration, artificial intelligence, decolonisation and social inequalities in South Asia.The article is based on preliminary field observations from Portugal as part of a research project supported by the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies and Birkbeck, University of London.