The government is unveiling its migration plan this Monday afternoon, with stricter rules, following a ministerial meeting this morning on the issue.
The presidential minister overseeing migration policy promised that the plan includes stricter rules, a strategy to attract qualified specialists and differentiated treatment for Portuguese speakers.
António Leitan Amaro criticized the current law on foreigners, which allows those arriving on a tourist visa to be legalized in Portugal through expressions of interest and the lack of adequate reception infrastructure.
“Migration policy is one of the greatest failures of the previous government” and “one of the most difficult legacies we have received,” he said on Saturday in an interview with Diário de Notícias and TSF, criticizing “the wrong choice of laws and rules for entry and regularization in Portugal, but also due to the collapse of institutions caused by the choice and process of closure of the SEF (Foreigners and Borders Service).
The SEF and the High Commission for Migration (ACM) were abolished in October 2023, making way for the newly created Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA).
After the meeting with the deputies, Leitan Amaru has already promised to review the institutional model of migration management in Portugal.
“Portugal had an institution, that institution was dismantled, its human resources were distributed among several institutions,” a decision criticized by several parties and organizations, the minister told reporters, promising that the new measures would include “correction also in the institutional field.” “, without obligation to maintain AIMA.
In 2023, Portugal processed approximately 180,000 applications for the regularization of immigrants, but there are still 400,000 outstanding issues, “including expressions of interest in obtaining a first residence permit, requests for family reunification, visa applications, extensions of visas or residence permits, visa procedures for CPLP citizens. [Comunidade dos Países e Língua Oficial Portuguesa]”.
Among these candidates, many have already left the country due to lack of response from the state.
AIMA receives an average of five thousand cases per week, and its response capacity is less than half that number.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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