Union blames “absence of consistent immigration policy”
While immigrants continue to complain about the service (or rather, lack of it) at AIMA – the agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum – the Portuguese union of migration technicians claims that most of the agency’s new intake are already putting in for transfers.
Such is the level of confusion; the challenges of facing endless queues of foreigners everyday (queues that start forming the night before), that AIMA staff “end up asking to be transferred to other organisations”, STM has said in a statement.
Indeed, the constant government reassurances that they will be recruiting more people stand for very little, on this basis – as most of them will also end up wanting to leave, says the union.
This dismal assessment follows answers given by AIMA’s president Pedro Portugal Gaspar to the committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees last week. Mr Gaspar explained that AIMA’s current staff, comprising 674 people, is just 2% higher than in October 2023 when the institution was created after SEF (the Foreigners and Borders Agency) and the High Commission for Migration were abolished.
Inheriting a heavy legacy of unfinished business (not least 400,000 applications for residency from immigrants from all corners of the globe), AIMA’s president admitted that “many staff” were opting to leave the agency, while those of a certain age were retiring.
In the meantime, the “migratory phenomenon is here to stay and the different geopolitical movements combined with climate and economic changes are only strengthening the phenomenon”, says STM today – meaning the stress on AIMA can only increase.
“Little by little, AIMA is becoming just a service organisation with no concern for migration policies or strategies, let alone integration”, says STM.
There is “complete disorder in terms of procedures, organisation and planning” and as a result, a great deal of antipathy within the ranks.
“STM is very concerned about the end of the mission to recover backlogs in the legalisation of immigrants, since having allocated all AIMA staff to this task, contrary to what was planned, we fear that in June we will once again have a very high number of backlogs in other areas,” the union’s statemet adds.
This fear appears to be borne out today by SIC Notícias which is carrying a report on the dissatisfaction of immigrants with AIMA. “They say the situation is getting worse and worse. Many sleep outside the doors, and even then there are those who don’t get seen” (when the doors finally open for the day), says the station.
The Porto outlet, for example, “just cannot cope”. It currently has 10 members of staff, only six of which are available to see people without a prior booking,
Immigrants affected by this level of service say the AIMA website is also no help at all: emails/ calls, they are simply never answered.
