The staff at embassy asked me to send grievance explaining my situation on a generic mail IDā¦that when I have previous experience with them not answering calls or replying to mail.
Finally, I told him I wanted to speak to someone higher upā¦haha he literally took it to his ego.
Just received from my attorney (VCA):
On 9th January 2025, VCA ā Valadas Coriel & Associados, participated in a meeting at AIMA to address and clarify specific aspects of the newly announced procedure for analyzing and approving Golden Visa (ARI) applications. Below is a summary of the key points and updates discussed during the session:
There are currently 58,000 pending cases (including investors and family members).
With the introduction of the new electronic handling procedure, documentation must be submitted electronically to minimize delays associated with physical document handling. Consequently, all investors who have not yet completed biometricsāincluding those who resubmitted applications between December 26, 2024, and the presentāwill have their processes reopened. This will enable the resubmission of fully compliant documentation that is both valid and properly legalized.
Documentation
Main Applicant
B. Spouse (if applicable)
Ā§ Criminal Record both from Country of Birth AND Residency (if different): Issued within the last 3 (three) months, duly legalized, and translated into Portuguese.
C. Children (if applicable)
I. Over 16 years old
Ā§ Criminal Record both from Country of Birth AND Residency: Issued within the last 3 (three) months, duly legalized, and translated into Portuguese.
II. Over 18 Years
Ā§ Criminal Record both from Country of Birth AND Residency: Issued within the last three months, duly legalized and translated into Portuguese.
D. Parents (if applicable):
Ā§ Criminal Record both from Country of Birth AND Residency: Issued within the last three months, duly legalized and translated into Portuguese.
Note regarding Criminal Records
Updated criminal records, if valid and legalized/apostilled, will not require further updates at the biometrics stage.
Exceptional Cases
AIMA will make exceptions for online submissions in cases where applicants cannot provide legalized documentation due to a lack of available legalization appointments or circumstances related to war-affected countries.
Complete, updated applications will be scheduled automatically (dates/locations cannot be chosen) while respecting initial chronological order.
Notifications for biometric appointments
The process is expected to start on 15th January 2025
Appointments are expected to begin 30 days after notifications are issued and will take place no later than 90 days from the notification date.
Dates and locations cannot be chosen, while respecting initial chronological order.
Expanded Biometrics Network
The network of locations for biometrics appointments will be expanded.
Rescheduling Policy
Rescheduling of appointments will only be allowed in the second half of the year with valid justifications for non-attendance.
Inactive Processes
Applications with no updates from the applicant for six months after notification of the new procedure may be considered abandoned.
This fee will be payable during biometrics appointments, currently at the rate of EUR 6,045.20. Applicants are advised to ensure banks allow sufficient transaction limits to avoid delays.
Applications will be analyzed after biometrics. Any missing or incorrect documentation will be flagged for correction. Missing or incorrect documentation may lead to a delay in the final approval.
The 5 (five-year) eligibility period for nationality begins from the date of payment of the analysis fee for the online submission.
Renewals will now require in-person appointments. A platform for scheduling these appointments will be launched soon.
The penalty rate for non-online applications will not apply under any circumstances.
AIMA initially reopened submissions only for investors but is now working to include family members to process families together.
The AIMA platform may undergo updates until 15th January.
AIMA emphasizes the need for electronic processing of updated and complete applications, with maximum documentation, to ensure efficient analysis and appointment scheduling. The process aims to decentralize tasks across more technicians and locations, with training ongoing to facilitate this transition.
Given the above, all applications waiting for biometrics appointments should be resubmitted with the required documentation, ensuring that it is both valid and properly legalized.
We highly recommend that you begin gathering updated documentation promptly and proceed with its legalization and translation to avoid any delays. Be confident that we will keep you informed of any new developments as they arise. If you have any inquiries or need additional support, we encourage you to get in touch with us. We are fully committed to providing unwavering support at every step of the process.
@mattbens , thanks for sharing VCAās update. Some lawyers are saying that the criminal check and marriage certificates are accepted in English as well. Did VCA not make any mention of that?
Now it seems that the entity gets hungrier than ever. Investors must pay card issuance first 6k/person. For a family of 4, it is about 24k Euros. However, the approval is done after the biometrics. Therefore, what if the application fails due to unsatisfied documents, how will AIMA refund the card issuanceās fee? Or for some reason, the investors wait for 1-2 years without approval, they want the money of card issuance back. Then how is it going to be possible? Or is this one way direction? Money in and money never comes out of AIMAā¦ 
Why birth certificates (for children/parents) are not mentioned by VCA?
Regarding your 3rd point. It is chronological. The number of people who applied in January because they prepared documents in November is very small. You donāt over optimize the system for 100% of the applicants. You build it to benefit 95% of the applicants.
I donāt care who gets the appointment first vs last as long as the system gets significantly faster from now on.
Did they have appointments 4 weeks from that moment?
It seems to be the case everywhere with the lack of available appointments with them at each embassy. I wonder why.
What country are you applying from?
You sound like a U.S. engineer asking to speak to a manager in a restaurant - which doesnāt quite work in most countries.
When it comes to OSR and ML, it definitely doesnāt work anywhere for valid security reasons. Letās not oversimplify the solution to a scenario where significant fraud could occur. No country accepts new citizens by simply āapplying ML to evaluate international birth certificatesā; thatās just not a serious proposition.
A more practical solution would be hiring more staff to process applications faster and cutting down on bureaucracy.
Please do not force ur views on me. U may not care if u applied in 2024 but I am waiting since 2022 and do care. No initial chronological order can be maintained. If submission button is not pressed again by my lawyer, I wont be called for biometrics. So, if u or ur lawyer press submission on ur AIMA portal before others do u are already ahead.
Yes, I am not denying that. But you are worried about the wrong thing. Itās a win-win situation. Donāt worry about someone getting a better deal than you do.
What fraud are u talking about? Tech is way too advanced now and not prone to corruption and inefficiency like humans are. And while yes, not everything can still be automated, parts of process can still be made better. And I am not asking them to accept someone as new citizen, I am asking for automating submissions and validation of visit visa processes.
U are missing the point.
The submission is fully automated.
Validation canāt be automated. Not a single country does it. Itās not even worth the investment.
The validation is what gives you residency and naturalization. There is no other step beyond that. Validation should be thorough.
I understand itās a therapy to complain about their process but I think the point is that well no longer need to pay for the lawsuit and that the process to get an appointment and a resident card just became very streamlined(hopefully).
And you are worried that a dozen of people might get ahead of you even though your waiting time just reduced to 90 more days.
Just take the win, man.
Do u work for AIMA? Pls do not conveniently justify their incompetence to suit your own nefarious designs whatever they may be. Their incoherent and inconsistent actions completely in contradiction with common sense, stated processes and promised timelines of the ARI program is what brought us here.
At the very least be true to yourselfā¦there is difference between a dozen people jumping the queue and 58000 applicants rushing for a free for all buffet, especially when it comes with a rider that failing to get in front, u will be abandoned in 6 months. Waiting reduced to 90 days? we will judge when appointments start rolling in. There definitely are better ways to address the backlog than the ways implemented by AIMA.
Where is the submission automated? I dont think u come from visa requiring country. We carry bundles of hard copy documents only after being able to procure vfs appointment which is a flawed system as agents rush to get whatever slots are available and they are in know how of when slots become available. And dont talk about validation. We process around 10k orders everyday where different customer POs with different formats, different item codes, different prices are automatically processed into orders, picked, invoiced and delivered. Exceptions are flagged and manually handled.
How can it be a win-win situation when the rule of this game only is decided by one side?
Pushing someone who already submited docs 2-4 years ago into a situation of re-submitting all same docs in a short time is not a win-win situation. The level of nastiness and brutalness is beyond humanās imagination. Only genius Aima could invent this kind of things.
You mentioned about the benefit of 95% investors. Think about carefully that 95% of investors do need Schengen Visa to enter the country and with appointments are distributed randomly, it is near impossible to prepare the visa on time. So where is the benefit of 95% of the investors? 
Maybe you are missing something in a new process?.
If you canāt get visa within 90 days, you have 6 months to plan your appointment in h2.
As for the documents - you can take as much time as you need(within 6 months). Trust me, I am someone who needs to renew my documents too, I know how hard it is.
Yet the majority of people would prefer a much faster appointment I believe rather than waiting for another year.
Thatās not how the US immigration system works. You canāt automate the documents validation for good reasons. It requires a manual process by design.
If you want to get a green card, you need to show a hard copy of the birth certificate, passports, divorce papers, deceased certificates, all of it, for ye dependent especially.
There is no āmlā involved lmao.