Some sort of Parliamentary grilling happening this weekâŠ
LuĂs Goes Pinheiro [AIMA President] will be heard in Parliament⊠this Wednesday from 4 pm at the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees.
âŠfocus, essentially, on four topics: assessment of the Governmentâs migration plan, what they are doing to recover delayed processes, clarifications on the notifications sent and the absences and shortages of AIMA resources.
And in case you were wondering how this big idea was goingâŠ
Bar Association criticizes Government for lack of progress in the protocol with AIMA
The Bar Association (OA) hopes to make progress in the negotiated protocol for professionals to help in the regularization processes of immigrants and asylum seekers. The protocol was signed on March 5th of this year, a few days before the legislative elections that gave victory to the PSD. âAt this moment, neither this protocol has been renegotiated with the Bar Association, nor is it included in the package of measures presented by the governmentââŠ
âŠand in a preview to tomorrowâs testimony (DN version of this story sums this 342k + 70k up to make 410k):
âŠbetween expressions of interest and administrative processes for residence permits, AIMA has â342 thousand pending requestsâ and around â70 thousand in processâ.
The president of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) warned that the 103 employees who are in the process of being hired for the organization âwill not be enough to solve needsâ, arguing that âmore human resources are neededâ, but also âincentives of another natureâ, namely financial.
Are you referring to the 113k that âmay be considered closedâ in the DN version of the story?
In May, AIMA sent 223 thousand emails to request early settlement of appointments for regularization processes regarding this resource and 110 thousand were paid.
The remainder, as they are not paid, may be considered closed by the services, if no other steps are taken.
A lawyer in a GV whatsapp group just posted the following update:
âHi everyone, some fresh news from the Council of Ministers which took place today and that start implementing some of the policies announced 3 weeks ago with the approval of the so-called âMigration Action Planâ:
(i) assigning the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) the mission to proactively attract immigrants; (ii) assuming and valuing the Migration Observatory as an AIMA body; and (iii) extending for one year, until June 30, 2025, the validity of documents and visas relating to stay in national territory (important to those who have been waiting to renew their GV cards since the beginning of the year).
It was also approved today a Resolution which creates the so-called âSpecial Mission Unit for the Recovery of Pending Processes at AIMAâ, which will be responsible for analyzing and deciding pending processes and which will operate until 02 June 2025. 300 people shall be hired and fully dedicated to administrative processing of pending processes and assistance to applicants.â
An admin in a well-known Facebook group posted this today:
âAwaiting clarification on latest immigration news from current government: a) All pending GVs at risk of cancelation b)Directive Extending Validity of expired docs being discussed today. Will update and share published confirmations as available.â
Yes, but the âcâ has only been missing since 2015, so the âoldâ spelling is still very much in general use, even on govt. documents you see words spelled both ways.
I saw that post on AFP as well. Nothing like casually inciting panic without citing any sources. I would assume such a thing is not really at risk of happening, given the whirlwind around the âmais habitaçaoâ law last year. But has anyone seen any press about the ARI one way or the other?
Few more details on the âtask forceâ in this article. Regulars on this forum know that deadlines often donât mean much, but at least they seem to be trying.
âŠofficially designated âmission structureâ was approved by the Council of Ministers this Tuesday [25-June]. It will be made up of two teams and has a period of less than a year - June 2, 2025 - to resolve the outstanding issues.
âŠwill consist of two teams. One will analyze and handle the digital processing of processes; the second team will reinforce assistance and the collection of biometric data from immigrants who are waiting for their residence permits. The aim is to recruit up to 100 specialists, up to 150 technical assistants and up to 50 operational assistants.
âŠto resolve everything by the scheduled deadline, which spans 49 weeks, the response capacity will have to exceed 2000 dispatches per week to around 8,400
LuĂs GĂłis Pinheiro⊠assured that âby the summer of 2025 we will have all the processes processed within the deadlineâ.
Those who failed to pay EUR 100 to speed up processing (recently announced) will be âprocessedâ first. This means case closed for them. These will then be counted as progress for next year
The government has relented to pressure and will now allow those immigrants in the country and working to apply for expression of interest notwithstanding the recent law. Bottom line, expect that 400,000 pending cases to increase by another 50-100k.
Task force announced on 25-June (see my earlier post) got Council of Ministers authorisation yesterday (10-July).
Donât know when we can expect these extra 300 bods to start pushing through the backlog⊠but their remit ends in less than a year (June 2, 2025) so they better get cracking.
Letâs also hope AIMAâs IT systems are ready and able to allow these folks to be productive! 300 more people staring at âerro do sistemaâ screens is not progress
âŠpublished Council of Ministers resolution creates the Mission Structure for the Recovery of Pending Cases at the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) and authorizes the recruitment for the two mission teams of a maximum of 100 experts, 150 technical assistants and 50 operational assistants.
