Many of these newcomers are "well informed and having planned their immigration", while others were attracted by stories on social media of an “El Dorado" that does not in fact exist, said the Casa’s president, Cíntia de Paulo, in an interview with Lusa News Agency in which she cited the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirming the trend.

According to de Paulo, who has been a member of the association since 2012 and is president since 2017, a new wave of immigrants to Portugal is underway, and gaining in momentum. Her organisation works to help Brazilians living in Portugal, and so comes into contact with many.

"I venture to say that in the last year, accentuating itself at the end of 2018 and early this year, there were very significant arrivals" of Brazilians in Portugal, she said. "It is a new wave very different from the others, with a cluster of profiles" of people who have come to stay.

Lusa sought fresh data on the subject from Portugal’s Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), but a source said that figures for 2018 are not yet available.

However, last year the Casa do Brasil helped 476 people who had sought it out for the first time. This year, up to 13 February, it helped a further 110 new people, said de Paulo.

Past waves of Brazilian immigration to Portugal have taken place in the late 1990s and early 2000s, she recalled, adding that the current one "is very large". It consists of several different groups, including less qualified people to a larger group with higher qualifications, many of them university students – a phenomenon already seen since 2009, but still growing.

There is also the formation of a new community, the retired, who have their own incomes in Brazil and the possibility of securing in Portugal a residence permit for retired people, as well as a higher class still, a group that is not so large, according to de Paulo.