Residence permits are currently being handled by the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) and it can take years for an immigrant to regularise their situation in Portugal.

Meanwhile, foreigners can work and make discounts, but cannot, for example, leave the country because they are in an irregular situation.

“I already make discounts for Portugal, I already pay taxes like the Portuguese, I just want a visa”, complains Marielle Santos, a Brazilian citizen who has been waiting for two years for the process to be completed.

“I'm two months away from being entitled to (unemployment) benefits, but my boss says he's going to sell the coffee shop. What will happen to me?”.

Portugal has “almost 300 thousand cases pending at the SEF” and, with the new AIMA, the leader of the Bangladesh Community Association of Porto, Alam Kazoi, fears an increase in bureaucracy and problems, because the judicial investigation will be in the hands of the police, since the new agency does not have this competence.

Therefore, “part of the process will be at the agency and another part the police and this will be even more complicated and more bureaucratic”, warns the person in charge, who estimates the number of Bangladeshi citizens in Portugal is at 50,000, with many still waiting for visas.

“Immigration is open and every day hundreds of immigrants enter, they register and the system is unable to respond”, he said, highlighting that the waiting lists are very long and, “on the black market, they are sold for 100 or 150 euros for appointment slots” at SEF.

No information

Amadou Diallo, leader of the Association to Support Immigrants and Refugees in Portugal (APIRP), considers that the lack of information to partners has marked the creation of the new agency.

“I can't comment because I'm poorly informed”, says the leader, who has a seat on the Migration Council and doesn't know how the new body, which should start on October 29th, will work.

“We have already criticised SEF many times” for the delays, which continue, and “things are not moving, because I think the problem is not the name [of the institution], but rather the lack of human resources”, says the director.

The SEF extinction process is scheduled for October 29th and the powers of this security service will be transferred to seven organizations.

AIMA, chaired by Luís Goes Pinheiro, will succeed the SEF in its functions in administrative matters related to foreign citizens and the High Commission for Migrations (ACM) in matters of reception and integration of immigrants in Portugal.

This division of the SEF “is going to be chaos”, warns Alam Kazoi, who criticises the fact that the now-defunct organisation has not resolved the pending cases: “This would only make sense if it were to start from scratch, now they are starting for less than zero ”…