Maria Lúcia Amaral was heard in Parliament, in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, to which she was called at the request of the Socialist Party, as the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, to talk about "human rights abuses" at the Temporary Installation Centre for immigrants at Lisbon airport.

To the deputies, the justice provider reminded that this is an issue she has been warning about since she took office in 2017, having made a first visit to the Temporary Installation Centre (CIT) at Lisbon airport in November of that year, where she found an outbreak of chickenpox, with "crowded people, women and children, quarantined in one of the wards".

Maria Lúcia Amaral recalled that, following that visit, where she found "unsustainable material conditions," she reported and discussed the problem as the Minister of Internal Administration at the time, Eduardo Cabrita, and the then director of the Foreigners and Borders Service, Carlos Moreira.

According to Maria Lúcia Amaral, "in the spring of 2018", Minister Eduardo Cabrita said that "Almoçageme, the alternative in Lisbon, would offer even better conditions than those existing in Porto, and would be ready months later".

"We are in 2020 and it does not exist and, for me, this is the great failure of the Portuguese state, and a great systemic frustration," she said.