“We need to greatly improve our reception system” for immigrants, but “the incentives we create as a State must be associated with responsibilities” on the part of employers, namely in supporting training and adequate housing for those arriving.

“I am sure that we will all work to overcome a highly complex challenge that Portugal is experiencing today, with migration, and especially with immigration”, said the government official, who presented the Action Plan for Migration earlier in the week.

The new rules, which include the end of expressions of interest (a resource that allowed a foreigner who had entered Portugal as a tourist to access a residence permit as long as they had an employment contract and 12 months of security discounts social), have come into force.

Currently, there are 400,000 immigrant cases pending regularization at the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA). “There are 400 thousand citizens, people, human beings, with their lives suspended waiting for a response from the State”, observed Leitão Amaro.

This is because “we have State institutions that cannot guarantee integration and humane and dignified treatment for those who choose Portugal as a country to live, nor can they guarantee safe, regular and orderly immigration”.

In this way, these people “fall into the hands of abuse, of exploitation by criminal networks,” he said.

However, the minister highlighted, “Portugal needs immigrants” and should not be “a country with closed doors”.

From now on, a foreign citizen only has access to a residence visa if they have completed their process in their country of origin, in many cases with a prior employment contract.

The only exceptions are citizens from the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) because Portugal has signed a mobility agreement.

Until now, the agreement only provided that these citizens could be in Portugal and were prohibited from traveling around Europe, one of the reasons that led Brussels to initiate proceedings against Lisbon because the rules must be common to the entire community space.

For Leitão Amaro, “there are problems in implementing” the plan because these Portuguese-speaking citizens are confined.

“Currently, they are people treated as second-rate, because they do not benefit from circulation or a uniform model of the Schengen area and they have a ‘card’ with a QR code”, with no value in other countries, he highlighted.

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