AIMA, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) is issuing expulsion orders to immigrants with Portuguese children.
This is the claim by Público today ahead of the ‘major immigrant demo’ planned for outside parliament when MPs return from the summer recess next week.
For its part, AIMA has stressed that immigrants can appeal expulsion orders, and that they must inform the authorities if they have children ‘born in Portugal’ (and therefore Portuguese nationals).
AIMA insists that it has no knowledge of issuing expulsion orders to immigrants with Portuguese children (which would be illegal).
As Público explains, since 2020 Portuguese law has defined the children of immigrants born in Portugal and who have been resident in the country for at least one year as Portuguese by birth. (This is, in fact, one of the criteria that the government wants to change with the nationality law, extending the period of residence of parents to three years…)
Of the 450,000 applications that were pending at AIMA when the agency ‘morphed’ from the dismantlement of SEF, only 29,000 had been decided in June. Indian citizens top the list of refusals, accounting for 46%. Bangladeshis have the second highest rate, at 27%. The total average refusal rate is around 18%, says Público – which claims to have identified ‘several cases of immigrants with Portuguese children who are being notified to leave the country voluntarily’.
The cases identified – mostly involving Indians – are due to reports through the SIS (Schengen Information System) of irregular residence in another European country, prior to seeking regularisation in Portugal.
Taking up this story, SIC Notícias says AIMA insists it has no knowledge of immigrants with Portuguese children notified to leave the country. “It asks them to update their files and inform the agency, in person or online.” says the news outlet.
A source from the office of the Minister of the Presidency, which oversees AIMA, has also claimed to have no knowledge of these notifications being sent to immigrants with children born in Portugal. The source actually said that the immigrants were being notified because they were identified in a SIS alert.
In the email sent out to immigrants notified to leave Portugal, AIMA explains that voluntary departure can be extended, but if the immigrants do not put in the requisite appeal – and do not leave the country – they will be subject to detention for ‘illegal permanence’.
Says SIC, the email makes no mention of ‘non-expulsion in the case of citizens who have Portuguese children’.
Sources: Público/ SIC Notícias
