According to Thursday's STA ruling to which Lusa also had access to, “without the competent residence permit, foreign citizens are placed in a situation of great fragility and vulnerability resulting from being undocumented, and as such, residing in a country illegally”.

At issue is a foreign citizen, originally from Bangladesh, who submitted a request for a temporary residence permit in May 2020 and who never received a response from the authorities, finding himself in an irregular situation in Portugal.

He submitted a summons (procedural means to protect rights, freedoms, and guarantees) to AIMA to obtain an urgent response, with the court's understanding that this method was not appropriate, leading to this appeal to the STA, which agreed.

“It is unquestionable that the 90-day period that the Administration had to make a decision was long exceeded and that in this case, this silence does not count as tacit approval”, can be read in the decision, reinforcing that the clandestine situation of this citizen is due to “the lack of decision on the part of the administration regarding the request for granting residence that it presented as soon as it entered national territory”.

The STA refuted the arguments of previous decisions that the urgency associated with the subpoena was not appropriate, as a long time had already passed since the legal deadline, considering this understanding “too reductive” on the part of the previous instances.

He also added that the “urgent nature of obtaining a residence permit is indisputable and current” and that “the need for urgent issuance of a decision on the merits is indispensable” to ensure the rights, freedoms, and guarantees of the immigrant, with the STA to recognize that the current situation calls into question the right to work, freedom, security, personal identity, health, and family.

“An undocumented foreign citizen is in an irregular situation, which will later be expressed in the way in which his rights are usurped, seeing himself, from the outset, compelled to accept precarious work, which national citizens do not want, when, from the moment you enter national territory, you are entitled to benefit from the same rights. As long as the residence permit is not granted to the Appellant, he remains vulnerable to abuse”, reinforced the judges.

In a response sent to Lusa, AIMA states that it has reorganised itself “internally to guarantee a timely response to the processes being heard in court”.

The agency also indicates that the subpoena has been used “for many years against the SEF, having intensified since the beginning of 2023, due to the growing acceptance of the measure by the courts”.

In a statement to Lusa, lawyer Marco Spínola Barreto, who represents the immigrant, considered this ruling “of enormous courage and conscience” and added that “it will change everything” in these processes of regularisation of foreigners in Portugal.

“It is revolutionary because from now on it is extremely urgent and this will leave AIMA in an ungrateful position. These people have the advantage of being able to execute and hold responsibilities to the president and directors of AIMA,” he stated.

The lawyer also highlighted the fact that the decision was signed by ten STA judges and highlighted that “the rest of the courts will be based on this decision”.

In 2023, Portugal processed close to 180,000 immigrant regularisations, but there are still around 400,000 outstanding issues at AIMA.

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