“On the definition of where the SEF inspectors are going, we are still awaiting the legislative pieces that are important for the definition of how this whole model will fit together”, said Fernando Silva during a hearing at the parliamentary committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, requested by the PSD regarding the restructuring process of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).

Fernando Silva said that there will be inspectors who are transferred “not only to the security forces”, but also to the Portuguese Agency for Migration and Asylum (APMA), which does not yet have a known diploma.

“We await the APMA decree-law which is important to define the other component of SEF's activity of documentation and regulation of foreign citizens in Portugal”, he said.

Fernando Silva also underlined that the issue of the loss of knowledge of SEF professionals “will not arise, because the SEF inspectors will not disappear” and “they will carry this knowledge with them to the entities to which they will be transferred”.

Regarding the postponement of the extinction of the SEF, which has already happened twice after being approved in November 2021 in parliament, the official said that “the most important thing at the end of all this is that things are consolidated and work”.

“Haste is not a good adviser in these matters”, he stressed, maintaining that the process “must take as long as necessary for these pieces to fit together”.

Regarding the SEF database, the official stressed that “it will be taken care of”, with the internal security system taking over the management.