“By the end of 2022, we will have completed the process of creating the Portuguese Agency for Migration and Asylum, which will structurally change the design and the way we welcome and integrate those who arrive here”, said Ana Catarina Mendes.

The minister, as well as the Secretary of State for Equality and Migration, Isabel Almeida Rodrigues, is being heard at the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, to present the work done so far.

Ana Catarina Mendes stressed that this agency follows the restructuring of the SEF, which separates administrative attributions from police attributions, leaving administrative attributions within the agency's purview.

The minister stressed that the Government wants to improve not only the responses to the entry of migrants into Portugal, but also to integration, adding that work is being done to analyse contributions so that “as soon as possible” the review of the organic law of the High Commissioner for Migration (ACM).

Refugees

The official justified this need with the fact that the ACM has seen a “significant” increase in its competences, spheres of action and target audience, as it works not only at the level of migrant integration, but also refugee reception.

On this last issue, the minister revealed that in 2022 alone, Portugal received “13 times more refugees than in the last five years combined”.

“Therefore, we intend to change the organic law of operation of the ACM to improve the efficiency of integration responses”, deepening the articulation between measures and public services, but also for the “continuation of promoting the appreciation of diversities in Portuguese society”.

She pointed out that since January of this year nine more National Immigrant Support Centers (CNAIM) have opened and that they have been diversifying the entities with which they work.

“Let us not have any illusions, migratory flows are here to stay and so is our need for manpower and to fight demography”, stressed Ana Catarina Mendes.