The shortage of human resources, which the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) has struggled with since its creation, will worsen with requests for the dismissal of hundreds of employees, the newspaper Expresso writes this Friday.
According to Expresso, citing an agency report this month on the resolution of outstanding issues with the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), the new body began work in October 2023 with just 714 staff – 41% of the contingent of missing bodies that will be available.
The document states that there was a “net reduction in the total number of employees due to the departure of several employees, not offset by additions that occurred during this time.”
“Many immediately applied for transfers to other government services, but AIMA stopped them. Such a situation cannot happen legally, reports Expresso, which quotes a source associated with the agency as saying that most employees have resubmitted the request.
The report, cited by Expresso, states: “There are several mobility requests that are estimated to represent the departure of 100 workers.”
Lack of resources is exacerbating the problem at the agency, given SEF’s large backlog of residency requests from immigrants that are awaiting a response.
Expresso also cites a report which states that AIMA indicates that there are at least 459,384 processes underway as of October 29, 2023, the majority (344,619) of legalization through expression of interest (for immigrants who are already in Portugal, without the need for legal entry into the territory).
“At the time of SEF’s closure, more than 3,200 humanitarian protection processes were still pending, 327 of which involved minors, 4,000 asylum requests and almost 15,000 related to citizenship,” the newspaper adds.
The report also highlights the legacy of 3,000 forced expulsions of immigrants who entered or remained in Portugal illegally.
“Efforts (still ongoing) were necessary to restore the state of the analysis, given the lack of a database that reflected the state of each process. So far, it has been possible to carry out an inventory of the processes for 2022 and 2023, for a total of 508,” refers to the document referred to by Expresso, which states that these numbers are defective.
“There are no applications for golden visas, student residence permits or applications carried out, for example, as part of family reunification,” he adds.
The AIMA report also acknowledged that “it is not possible to determine the number of pending cases in a simple or reliable way” using information contained in databases.
Waiting times for immigrants are easier to measure. Most of the cases were initiated in 2017, and six of the earlier dates still remain unanswered, including one from 2008 and one from 2009, the newspaper said, indicating that the report repeatedly cites system information deficiencies .
AIMA talks about “aging technology infrastructure” that required “significant corrective and maintenance measures to ensure responsiveness and minimum standards of cybersecurity and information security.”
Last week the government announced it would review the institutional model for monitoring immigrants, deeming the way AIMA replaced the defunct SEF a “mistake.”
“Portugal had an institution, this institution was liquidated, its human resources were distributed among several institutions,” a decision that was criticized by several parties and organizations, said the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitan Amaru, who promised that “within the next few weeks the announcement on measures for the sector that include “adjustments also in the institutional field”, without obligations to maintain AIMA.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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