Moedas wants to open an immigration reception center in Lisbon “as soon as possible”

Lisbon City Council President Carlos Moedas (PSD) welcomed on Tuesday the Migration Action Plan presented on Monday by the government (PSD/CDS) and defended the temporary reception of immigrants “as quickly as possible.”

“We need a reception center because these people [imigrantes] arrive here, they cannot be in Arroios in tents, it is painful, it is unacceptable and the mayor cannot do anything because most of them are not documented,” said Carlos Moedas on the sidelines of a meeting on the economic impact of the World Youth Day ( VDM).

Recalling the request for a temporary reception center, the mayor of Lisbon expressed “very satisfaction” that the government announced this measure as part of the presentation of the Migration Action Plan.

“We will have a temporary reception point. The municipality can go there to invest and carry out work. I just need the government to tell me where it is. Therefore, some objects have already been defined; we will work in them. in this direction, and soon we have a center where these people, when they come, have AIMA [Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo]they have a city council, they have civil defense, they have the Red Cross, they have Santa Casa. [da Misericórdia de Lisboa] and together we are trying to solve it,” he said.

In this context, Carlos Moedas announced that he will have a meeting on Tuesday with Presidential Minister António Leitan Amaro, noting that the location for the temporary reception center for immigrants “is the choice of the government”, especially because in the Lisbon City Council “there is no place for it” , but emphasize that the decision must be made “as quickly as possible.”

“It is in this sense that I asked the government [para] find an old barracks or an old hospital where you can temporarily stay. We are talking here about a temporary center to receive people with dignity,” the mayor emphasized, noting that “there are several potential sites,” including a former military hospital in Belem.

The mayor also recalled that during the year he called for a “decent immigration policy” in Portugal, since “no such policy existed” and the lack of protection for immigrants “multiplied human trafficking networks, given that the plan presented by the Government responds to this need.

With the Migration Action Plan, the government ended the exceptional regime that allowed a foreigner to enter Portugal before applying for a residence permit, and announced the creation of a mission structure to streamline pending processes, estimated at 400,000 people.

“Finally, we will have decent politics here and we will welcome people with dignity, because whoever comes to Lisbon is from Lisbon. We need more people to work, but we need to have a network, for example, of employment, in which these people arrive, they quickly have documents and they are often needed in other parts of the country,” said Carlos Moedas, emphasizing the need for coordination at the national level.

The mayor also highlighted a “cry of warning” about the situation of immigrants sleeping on the streets, during which he suggested holding meetings with other mayors of the Lisbon metropolitan region, since the city of Lisbon “cannot solve the problem alone.”

“In the city of Lisbon we have more than half of the admissions in the whole country. We need government. We need a president of the republic who was also the first to warn,” the mayor confirmed, emphasizing municipal investments. 70 million euros by 2030 for homeless people.

Carlos Moedas also praised the position of former Director General of the International Organization for Migration and former Socialist minister Antonio Vitorino regarding the Migration Action Plan, considering that “it is a balanced plan.”