The government announced on Tuesday the transfer of the current president of the Integration, Migration and Asylum Agency (AIMA) to the new structure of the migration mission and appointed Pedro Portugal Gaspar as the new head of the organization.
In a statement sent to Lusa, the executive director announced that Pedro Portugal Gaspar, who until now held the position of Director General of Consumer Affairs, had been appointed President of AIMA “in order to implement the government’s new orientation in the area of migration policy” and that academic researcher Pedro Gois would be appointed President of AIMA to be the scientific director of the Migration Observatory.
The new structure of the mission for the recovery of unfinished immigration processes, envisaged by the Migration Action Plan, will be headed by Luís Gus Pinheiro, and its mission will be to “resolve the history of more than 400 thousand regularization processes awaiting analysis, accumulated over the past few years.”
“Given the operational specificity of this task and the detailed knowledge of the current situation,” Luis Gus Pinheiro will be the general coordinator of the group, which includes Manuel Teixeira, Chief Inspector of the SP and formerly responsible for the documentation area of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), and Nuno Fonseca, current member of AIMA.
“The government’s decision is justified by the fact that this group has assembled the necessary technical profiles for the above-mentioned functions, as well as by the demonstrated commitment to successfully resolve the outstanding issues that have accumulated in AIMA and the defunct SEF, in order to further achieve this objective set out in the Migration Action Plan,” the government said.
“The success of this mission structure is crucial for the stabilisation of the situation of immigrants in Portugal and for the functioning of AIMA itself,” the government believes.
The structure will employ up to 100 specialists, 150 technical assistants and 50 operational assistants.
As for AIMA, the government promises to “change direction” by including the names of Marta Feijo, Luisa Coelho Ribeiro, César Teixeira and Mário Magalhães Pedro in the new board of directors.
“The new AIMA leadership will implement the measures recommended in the Migration Action Plan presented in early June,” the director says.
“The new cycle implies a new approach to the implementation of the mission and competencies,” as well as to “the management of human and financial resources, the restructuring of its functional scope and the transformation of its role within the framework of migration policy, adding the aspect of attracting foreign human capital” to Portugal, he adds.
The plan included an “organic restructuring” that included “the Migration Observatory as an organ of this state institution.”
This new AIMA body will be responsible for the “mission of producing, collecting, processing and disseminating information and knowledge on the phenomenon of migration.”
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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