Angry scenes outside the offices of AIMA (the agency for integration, migrations and asylum) saw police reinforcements called in today, to try and keep ‘order’ among the many hundreds waiting in line for documentation/ answers that AIMA has repeatedly shown it cannot deliver.
SIC Notícias carries a report on its website, and will no doubt be featuring the situation on its evening news bulletins.
People talking to the media outlet stress “it is like this every day! Thousands of people waiting, and just one place…” incapable of dealing with the myriad issues.
As SIC explains, hundreds of migrants sleep rough outside AIMA’s premises in the Anjos’ district, just to get the chance of being attended the next day.
“The queue goes all the way down the street and along Avenida Almirante Reis, passing right in front of local shops,” says the station.
Isilda Martins runs a florists in the middle of the mayhem, telling SIC that it is “a scandal, for them (the people queuing) and for the shopkeepers who suffer this every single day”.
This is yet another situation that the government may well say is “going well now”, particularly after 28 extra magistrates were drafted in to process pending cases. The trouble is that it isn’t going well, at all. And the 28 magistrates were nothing like the number being called for by the court system.
It is impossible to tell how many cases are currently pending at AIMA. They range from people dealing with simple ‘renewals’ of residencies, etc., to those seeking Portuguese nationality.
Less than two months ago, there was said to be 130,000 cases ‘still waiting for a decision’ from Lisbon’s administrative court.
Judging by the melée outside AIMA’s office today, there may well be thousands of others still trying to get to the stage where they reach the administrative court.
Source: SIC Notícias
