The Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA) will run 15 immigration centers in the next few weeks. AIMA has the capacity of more staff and better funding which can run these centers efficiently.

AIMA Will Run Immigration Centers

15 service centers for immigration will be opened in a few weeks. These centers will be run by AIMA across different parts of the country. The Minister for Presidency, António Leitão Amaro has informed us that some service centers will start their operations from the end of October. António was addressing the committee of Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms, and Guarantees. Previously, the largest service center for immigration was built in Lisbon back in September. Now, it is planned to build more service centers in the cities of Braga and Porto. He stated:

It’s an operation to formalize paperwork and for the state to comply with the rules it has set. [It is about] giving dignity and humanism, but also bringing order because this formalization 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.

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The service centers located in Lisbon, Brage, and Porto will be the biggest. Some other service centers will also be established in various municipalities although they are much smaller than these cities. The Minister of the Presidency reported that these centers will help the country to organize the capacity of the State from 1000 to 3000.

Portugal’s Government aims to recover more than 400,000 pending immigration cases. These cases are pending from the borders agency and these cases are piling up. The only solution is to open more immigration centers in different municipalities. People will only obtain residency permits who comply with the law.

Government’s Migration Plan

The minister has adopted the government’s migration plan which was presented in June. He informed us that more than half of these 41 measures were selected for one parliamentary term. He stated:

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 legalization of foreigners who arrived in Portugal on tourist visas and then wanted to apply for residency.

António Leitão has stated that AIMA is more strengthened than before which will aid in improving the budget allocation for the next year. This is only possible with the reinforcement of human resources. The associations of immigration are trying to get immigration authorities to try and obtain this system under their command. He stated:

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.

The Portuguese Government has already received some recruitment offers which allow the number of AIMA employees to be increased by 13 %. These employees can be recruited for these new immigration centers until the end of the year. This figure can reach 35% by the end of 2025. According to statistics, these numbers will be increased to 85 % more than the current figures.

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