AIMA to be ‘strengthened’ with extra staff and funding
Over the next few weeks 15 service centres run by the Task Force of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) will be operating in different parts of the country.
António Leitão Amaro, minister for the presidency, being heard by the parliamentary committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees guaranteed today that some of the service centres will be operating “this month”.
This means, in addition to the largest centre which began operating in Lisbon in September, service centres will open in Braga and Porto.
The service centres in Lisbon, Braga and Porto will be the largest, he said, while the other immigrant service points will be smaller and set up at municipal level.
Leitão Amaro stressed these centres have made it possible to “triple the State’s service capacity”, from 1,000 to 3,000.
Highlighting the “relevant impact” of the task force – created to recover the more than 400,000 pending immigrant legalisation cases inherited from the extinction of borders agency SEF – Leitão Amaro stressed this is not a “legalisation option”, since only those who “comply with the law” will obtain much sought-after residence permits.
“It’s an operation to formalise paperwork and for the state to comply with the rules it has set,” he said. It is about “giving dignity and humanism, but also bringing order because this formalisation mechanism or operation makes it possible to know who (the immigrants) are, where they are and what each of those people who are in Portugal are doing.”
In the committee, the minister took stock of the government’s migration plan presented in June, saying that more than half of the 41 measures set out ‘for one parliamentary term’ are ‘fully implemented’.
“Around 80% of a four-year plan is well advanced at the end of a few months,” he said, indicating that one of the “main advances” was the end of expressions of interest, a scheme that allowed for the legalisation of foreigners who arrived in Portugal on tourist visas and then wanted to apply for residency.
“That has come to an end. With that decision, 24,000 applications for residence permits were submitted, which means that for a comparable period there was a reduction of around 80% in the flow of applications for residence. This measure has had significant effects,” he added (making no reference to the fact that immigrant associations seem intent on trying to get it brought back).
Leitão Amaro also revealed that AIMA is to be strengthened, “not only with a very significant reinforcement of (its) budget allocation” for next year, but also with “the reinforcement of human resources”.
There are already recruitment offers open that allow for a 13% increase in the number of AIMA employees by the end of the year and a further 35% by 2025, “thus increasing the number by 85% compared to current figures“, he said.
Source: LUSA
