Former high commissioner for migration and head of AIMA, the Portuguese Agency for the Integration of Migrants and Asylum, Sónia Pereira said today that the agency is “on the way” to resolving the enormous problem it inherited from disbanded SEF (foreigners and borders agency).
Questioned by Lusa in the context of the mayor of Porto’s exasperation, and request that AIMA be abolished altogether, Sónia Pereira countered with a new vision of migration and an ongoing plan.
“We know AIMA is not a consensual project and that at times of greater difficulty it is easy to see the agency as the problem. But the truth is that the problem existed before, and AIMA is on the way to solving it,” she said.
Around half a million (possibly even more) cases concerning citizens requiring residency authorisations/ renewals “are pending” and “there are serious difficulties in the functioning of the control, inspection, reception and integration system“, the new government said in April, blaming “the extinction of SEF by the previous socialist executive”.
