Montenegro rejects any link between immigration and crime

The Prime Minister of Portugal this Monday rejected any link between immigrants and the rise in crime, but said that Portugal has legislation that allows entry abuses.

“There is no direct connection between our ability to welcome immigrants and the rise in crime,” Luis Montenegro said during a public presentation of the Migration Action Plan, which includes 41 measures.

The Prime Minister recalled that “there are crimes committed by Portuguese citizens and crimes committed by foreign citizens,” rejecting “casuistic episodes” that allow groups of foreigners to be stigmatized.

There are currently “more than 400 thousand people with unfinished regularization processes”, which is “synonymous with lack of care”, the head of government said, defending “the humanistic tendency to give the answer that people need, even if it is negative” .

“We want to put an end to some mechanisms that have become an excessive abuse of our ability to receive guests,” Luis Montenegro said, referring to the visa requested based on an expression of interest.

This exceptional regime “will come to an end, and the end will come today” with the repeal of the provisions of Articles 88 and 89 of the Aliens Law, which allowed the legalization of foreigners arriving as tourists.

While rejecting a link between crime and immigration, Montenegro acknowledged that the fact that authorities allow “particularly vulnerable people to concentrate in some parts of the territory” with overcrowded houses or precarious camps creates “a sense of insecurity in others.”

“The feeling of insecurity itself causes insecurity,” said Luis Montenegro, calling legal immigrants “the new Portuguese.”

State authorities “all must ensure that this image does not create uncertainty,” he added, also emphasizing that “it is impossible to achieve success or integration without a lot of effort on the part of local authorities,” a job that involves security forces.

Regarding the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), created last October, the Prime Minister believes that the process has not been adequate and procedures need to be changed.

“The current agency is not working very well, we will have to restructure AIMA,” said the government official, who also emphasized “strengthening PSP resources” to create a new Foreigners and Borders Unit (UEF).

“The problem of migration is today inevitable in the life of our country, in the life of the world,” and Portugal has witnessed “over the last two decades” a “demographic decline, a decline in the birth rate, which has consequences for the coming decades, whatever the policy to remove obstacles to expansion families.

To this end, the plan includes provisions to ensure “the quality of life that immigrants seek and desire,” in areas such as “access to education, access to quality public school, access to healthcare,” or “access to physical fitness.” and mental health.”

Stressing that the plan is “cross-cutting, based on a spirit of openness and hospitality” and contains decisions formulated between the various guardianship authorities, Luis Montenegro said the goal is to “give the country more human resources.”

“Over the years, several generations of Portuguese have looked for these opportunities abroad,” and “people who are looking for Portugal are looking for Portugal with the same spirit with which many Portuguese have been looking abroad,” he stated.

In his speech, Luis Montenegro repeated several times that his leader’s policy is “a policy of neither open nor closed doors” towards immigrants.

“We are not going to close the door to anyone who wants to have this opportunity” to come to Portugal, “we will never close it for reasons of humanitarianism,” but also for “issues of pragmatism” in relation to the needs of the country, he explained.

However, the country cannot “go to the extreme” and throw its doors wide open, he said.