The decision to abolish the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) has been a subject of much debate over the past two years, and it has now been officially implemented. The SEF was dissolved on October 29, and its police and administrative duties will now be handled by other organizations. One such organization is the newly established Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA), which will be responsible for processing residence permit applications for foreign nationals arriving in Portugal and beyond. Learn more about how these new institutions, with the help of experts, will function in place of SEF. Find out how the institutions that replace SEF with the help of experts will work.
The Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) was extinguished on October 29 at 00:00. The restructuring of SEF was decided by the previous Government and approved by the Assembly of the Republic in November 2021, having been postponed twice.
At the same time as the extinction of the SEF, the new Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) came into operation, which many think is the replacement for the SEF. But this is just one of several institutions that will have competences in the areas so far supervised by SEF.
Police responsibilities will be redistributed between the Public Security Police (PSP), the National Republican Guard (GNR) and the Judiciary Police (PJ). And the administrative functions related to foreign citizens are now the responsibility of the Institute of Registration and Notary (IRN) and the newly created Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA).
To coordinate and articulate all these services, the Border and Foreigners Coordination Unit (UCFE) was created, which will be allocated to the Internal Security System (SSI), the experts point out.
With the restructuring, 75 SEF workers move to the Institute of Registration and Notary (IRN), in order to ensure face-to-face service, as well as the decision-making center. The IRN inherits, in particular, two important responsibilities, namely:
- Electronic Passport Portuguese: namely the ordinary passport, the special passport, the temporary passport and the passport for foreign citizens
- Renewal of Residence Permit: the registration desks provide service by appointment. Here it will be possible to renew the Residence Certificate for temporary and permanent foreigners, except in the cases of victims of trafficking in persons and for investment purposes, which are ensured by AIMA.
Online scheduling for the renewal of residence permits will be available through the SIGA booking portal and the siga App application. And the service now has more service points and namely in 34 registration counters and in the Citizen Shops mentioned here.
The foreigners have to go to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA). “It is this agency that is responsible for administrative functions related to foreign citizens in Portugal, namely residence permits and refugees. It inherits, from the High Commission for Migration (ACM), the issues of reception and integration of immigrants in Portugal“,. The information will be available on AIMA’s new website, which does not yet have content.
The Government has formally announced that AIMA will make a strong investment in digital infrastructure and the hiring of an additional 190 employees. And in addition to the current 34 service desks, it will open at least 10 new branches within a year. Specifically, these are the main measures announced by the Socialist Executive:
- AIMA Portal: will be launched by the end of the year. And it will start with requests for family reunification, dispensing with the current telephone scheduling.
- Mega operation to recover the 347 thousand pending cases: operation with the involvement of municipalities, professional associations and employees of the Local Support Centers for the Integration of Migrants.
It is currently unclear whether the pending legalization processes will be resolved. AIMA plans to prioritize the resolution of these processes by conducting a mega-operation. “We are going to launch a mega operation to recover pending issues by the end of March, the objective is to clear the backlogs” of migrants’ residency applications, stated Ana Catarina Mendes, Deputy Minister of Parliamentary Affairs who will supervise AIMA, as quoted by Público.
However, based on available data, it is expected that by March 2024, there will be approximately 600,000 pending processes for the legalization or renewal of temporary licenses. This is because there are 347,000 pending applications for the legalization of migrants, which should be added to the 199,000 renewals of one-year temporary visas given to CPLP migrants and another 53,000 temporary visas given to Ukrainian citizens.
Meanwhile, Luís Góis Pinheiro, president of AIMA, stated that the agency aims to respond to the almost 350,000 pending processes for the legalization of immigrants inherited by SEF within a year and a half, according to TSF.
The Border and Foreigners Coordination Unit (UCFE) will therefore be coordinating all the services provided so far by SEF that have been distributed by other entities.UCFE will have several powers and responsibilities:
- Border control: its mission is to ensure uniform compliance with technical standards and procedures when controlling the entry, stay and exit of people at borders;
- Centralisation of information: collect information on the entry, stay and exit of persons in the national territory, trafficking in human beings, facilitation of illegal immigration and other crimes related to irregular immigration;
- Police Information Management: will record and update police and criminal information related to foreigners, as well as disseminate information on illegally staying foreigners;
- Issuance of security information: it will issue information and security opinions for the granting, renewal of documents, recognition of rights, attribution of nationality to foreigners and granting of passports. This information helps in the assessment of threats to internal security, public order, public safety, and in the prevention of illegal immigration and related crimes;
- Database management: UCFE will be responsible for the management of police databases and information systems, including the Single Point of Contact (PUC), which encompasses Interpol and Europol, as well as all databases that were owned by SEF.
Source: SEF has been extinguished: what now? Find out all about it in this guide — idealista/news