If the day of the SEF’s extinction were today, the new Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) would already have to decide at least around 270,000 applications for residence visas.
According to inspectors and administrative staff monitoring this issue, the approximate number will be: SEF does not accurately disclose this information – in expressions of interest (MI) registered on the SAPA portal (Automatic Pre-Scheduling System) and which only relate to the exception regimes (Articles 88 and 89 of the Aliens Act) that require obtaining a residence permit to work for anyone who can provide a contract and even an annual discount on social security for those who entered the country illegally.
Official SEF source acknowledges that the extent of these expressions of interest takes place on a “daily average of 1000 MI submission requests on the SAPA portal” and while a large proportion (the SEF does not say what percentage) is not completed because the required documents have not been provided, this has been the main source of delays in SEF planning since this rule came into effect in 2017.
However, the foreign population with legal status in Portugal has doubled since 2016, reaching more than 700,000 inhabitants by the end of 2022.
At the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020, that was the case more than 300,000 expressions of interest have stoppedof foreigners who started registering in 2017/2018 as soon as the new law came into effect.
30,000 expressions of interest per month
“At that time, the SEF began making appointments in chronological order of registrations and cleared the list until at least February 2022, and those who had submitted their requests up to that date and were still in the country were called. We were able to regularize about 150 thousand and about 140 thousand took advantage of the new CPLP mobility visas,” one of the sources cited stressed.
Given the average number of thousand new MIs per day (30 thousand per month), officially adopted by SEF, it is possible that on October 29, when the transition to AIMA takes place, the number of pending cases will be even higher than the current 270,000, “the analysis and decision of which,” he states official source”happens at a later time and through personal service scheduling”
“It is at this point,” he adds, “that biometric data is collected” and “at the time of analysis and decision-making by the SEF, these documents are verified by the agency and, if all the necessary documentation has not been collected, the applicant will be notified that he will be presented later”.
In the context of exception rule, that of Articles 88 and 89as evidenced by a recent judicial investigation – which dismantled a network that supported illegal immigration from India aggravating factor of irregular migration flows for our country, the official SEF spokesperson does not reveal how many immigrants have actually been regularized.
In unclear answer it only says that “the implementation, in March this year, of the new model for granting residence permits to citizens of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (AR CPLP) made it possible to recover approximately 150,000 of the ongoing MI. for the resolution of the situations where the applicants have chosen the AR CPLP model, more than 160 thousand citizens who have submitted their respective MI requests have already been notified.
The same official source also adds that “SEF has been around for more than… 278 thousand vacancies in services in its different branches – there are 13,500 free places for the different types of residence permits and related services”.
Questions about the total number of processes (mainly residence permits and asylum applications) that will be transferred to AIMA, the percentage of MI excluded from the planning and the increase caused by the entry into force of the new CPLP visas and work search visas, remained unanswered.
O Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor is it revealed the number of these latter types of visas applied for at the Portuguese consulates in these countries.
After all, AIMA will still have police officers
However, when there are only about 30 days left before the SEF is extinguishedthe inspectors were surprised by the fact that AIMA – who would only inherit the administrative functions – after all, he would also need these police officers for the processing asylum applicationsas it is still no training in this area was provided to civil servants that go to the agency.
A situation that the president of Research and Guidance Career Union, Rui Paiva, who represents the majority of inspectors, considers it a “paradox “given the political objectives” of this reform (the separation of police and administrative functions) and, in his opinion, does not even have a legal framework (see interview here).
In turn, the chairman of the SEF Employees’ Unionrepresenting the non-police cadres of this security service, regrets that their calls were no longer listened to.
“We have warned several times that asylum issues should not be solely in the hands of inspectors and that training was needed for this transition. We were sure that this would happen, that it would change, but the AIMA board of directors only took office about a month ago and there was no time for it,” he points out. Artur Jorge Girao.
It is also estimated that this coursewhere you will learn, among other things, an extensive set of national and international legislation, European directives, knowledge of the situation in the countries of origin, “lasts six months to a year”since, at least during this period, the AIMA will have to call on inspectors (already from the PJ at the time) to continue this work.
To this end, they should be temporarily assigned to the Agency about a dozen inspectors currently assigned to the SEF Asylum and Refugee Office.
According to the organic law of the service, in addition to the various responsibilities they assume, they are responsible for ‘organizing and instructing asylum processes; processes for granting residence permits for humanitarian reasons; issuing opinions on requests for refugee resettlement and on requests to grant and renew travel documents. for refugees, presented at Portuguese consular posts; issuing identity cards and travel documents for refugees, as well as granting residence permits as provided for in the Asylum Act and renewing or extending said documents; and ensuring the link between SEF and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO)”.
According to the SEF, 1,991 applications for international protection were received and processed in 2022, and 1,547 in 2023, up to the end of August.
Questioned by DN, the office of the Deputy Minister and Parliamentary AffairsAna Catarina Mendes, who oversees AIMA, provided the following response on the number of inspectors who would still serve at the Agency, as well as on the training plan and coordination with the Internal Security System (SSI): “The instruction of administrative to AIMA assigned procedures are the responsibility of AIMA employees, who: when this proves necessary, properly trained to perform their dutiesnamely the measures related to the measures to be taken in the event that the Aliens and Borders Coordination Unit (SSI) discovers facts requiring special action. AIMA will retain the inspectors who, in accordance with the law and the strategy that will determine the actions of this body, should continue to perform functions in the new agency. AIMA will prioritize offering services in an omnichannel model in which the different channels, digital, personal and telephone, work in an integrated and complementary way. a improving proceduresInvestments in the digital channel and integrated demand management will quickly improve the quality of service to users of AIMA services.”
Source: DN
