(JTA) — Portugal has granted citizenship to about 23,000 people who applied under a 2015 law granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews.
That figure means that the government has thus far approved about 30% of the roughly 76,000 applications submitted since 2015. Officials did not say how many applications were declined.
About 25,000 of applications were submitted in 2019 alone, many of which have not yet been processed.
The figures were released in a statement on Oct. 22 from the Washington, D.C.-based Sephardic Heritage International organization.