Immigrants want simple, single procedure to access essential services
A petition, launched ahead of Wednesday’s immigrant demonstration in Porto with around 500 signatures, calls for coordination between various Portuguese organisations to create single procedures for all immigrants.
“In view of the fragility of the system for providing services to foreign citizens, the danger of new abuses against this community, and the lack of respect for constitutional norms,” the petition calls for coordination between the following bodies: Portugal’s notary and registry office (IRN), the agency for integration, migration and asylum (AIMA, formerly SEF), the national health service and the higher education authority (DGES), “with a view to creating single procedures to be adopted in a generalised manner between bodies”, reads the text to which Lusa had access.
Authored by Brazilian lawyer Priscila Santos Nazareth Corrêa, who specialises in Private International Law, the petition also demands that a communication channel be created “urgently, digitally and protected from the so-called booking mafias” to ensure that immigrants have access to essential services, thus guaranteeing “obedience to the principle of efficiency in public administration”.
The lawyer, who lives in Braga, says that the communication channel that now exists with the AIMA via the website has not responded to requests made via the petition.
The petition also demands that regulation “with a defined time frame for the application of nationality law in the context of the application for nationality by length of residence” be drawn up, with public consultation of interested parties, namely the immigrant community and lawyers.
Priscila Corrêa is also one of the organisers of the immigrant demonstration scheduled for today at 2pm in front of the premises of the Agency for the Integration of Migration and Asylum, formerly the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), in Porto, to protest against the delays in responding to requests for documents and the contradictory information between the various entities, which is harming foreign citizens living in Portugal in their legalisation process.
“It is public knowledge that the recently created AIMA has faced an immense challenge in serving immigrants, with regard to appointments for interviews to grant residence permits, but also for cases of renewal, regrouping, changing data, requests for extensions and many other services that are only available in person,” reads the petition.
As a result, it is considered that “immigrants have been disadvantaged”, especially with regard to “access to healthcare, renewal of student scholarships, access to grants for the completion of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral studies”.
In addition, it is emphasised that recently “the immigrant community that has signed up for the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) residence permit” is “faced with a situation of enormous legal uncertainty, given that the information that was provided at the time of the creation of the CPLP Portal was not conclusive to the point of allowing those interested to opt for this residence without prejudice to other rights inherent to the citizen, such as the right to come and go, and other constitutionally guaranteed rights”.
Depending on the impact of today’s demonstration, others could be held in Braga on 5 April and in Lisbon on the 11th, Priscila Corrêa said.
