Although Portugal has just approved a broad package of measures to attract immigrants, including a new visa to look for work in the country, the Portuguese migration services cannot even handle the foreigners who are already in the territory of the European country.
According to the Ministry of Internal Administration, there are, with pending requests for regularization, about 200,000 people who have presented the so-called “expression of interest” to legally remain in the country. In general, this contingent represents the main route of migration to Portugal: people who arrive as tourists, but stay to work even without proper documentation.
Portugal is one of the few European Union countries to offer the possibility of regularization through work. Immigrants who present an employment contract or carry out autonomous activities with the issuance of receipts and Social Security contributions can start the process.
The first step is precisely the “expression of interest”. Today, requests have taken more than two years to be processed by the SEF (Foreigners and Borders Service), under the Ministry of Internal Administration. Overworked, the agency is unable to serve immigrants already regularized in the country, and the constant delays in renewing residence permits have been so great that the government has published a decree to automatically extend the validity of the papers until December 31.
The measure is only valid in Portugal, limiting the movement of affected immigrants, who may have problems entering or leaving other European countries. The Brazilian Anderson Souza was dismissed from one of the companies for which he provided delivery service after having problems with the renewal, as the registration platform automatically excludes those who have expired authorization.
“I only resolved the situation after I found out about the decree and showed it to my supervisor, who also didn’t know”, says Souza. Groups of Brazilians on social networks and associations supporting immigrants gather reports of those who had problems with employers or receiving social benefits.
Created at the beginning of the pandemic to relieve the face-to-face service of the SEF, the service of automatic renewal of residence permit, which worked without embarrassment in 2020, now has consecutive delays. The lack of resources from the agency leaves even foreigners who have the right to residency due to family relationships in an irregular situation. This is the case, for example, of spouses of European Union citizens and children of newly regularized immigrants, among others.
After months without opening new appointments, the SEF made available in recent weeks around 42,000 vacancies. The only way to schedule an appointment, the agency’s phone numbers did not support the demand and showed instability. In addition to the technical difficulty due to high demand, there is a lack of employees for service. According to a report in the Público newspaper, there were only 50 attendants available.
Many immigrants turned to apps that perform automatic redial, such as Jessica Cavalcanti, who made more than 3,000 calls to the SEF. “It is absurd, there is no respect for our situation. I have been in an irregular situation for five months, even though I can live here due to my husband’s Italian nationality.”
In addition to the difficulty to be able to leave the country, the Brazilian says that the lack of the document also brings obstacles to opening a bank account and getting qualified employment. Many foreigners report similar problems. On Facebook, the SEF publication announcing the opening hours was flooded by hundreds of comments with complaints about the services. Failures in service also motivated the creation of the virtual petition “Dignity in Scheduling at SEF”.
“There are mass immigration policies for Portugal, but the government and its bodies end up, in practice, without offering decent structure and conditions to immigrants nor to qualified professionals who develop their activities in this area of ​​law”, says the petition, which has over 4,700 signatures.
Asked about the problem in serving foreigners, the Minister of Internal Administration, José LuÃs Carneiro, acknowledged that there were no human resources to meet the demand.
With the arrival of immigrants with the new work visas, services must be even more pressured. Although authorizations are issued by consulates and embassies, foreigners need to go through the SEF to obtain a residence permit once they are in Portugal.
The very future of the organ, moreover, remains uncertain. About two years ago, the Portuguese government announced the extinction of the SEF, which would be replaced by the Portuguese Agency for Migration and Asylum. The closure of activities, however, has been successively postponed.
Despite the problems, the Portuguese authorities continually highlight the importance of immigrants to the country’s economy, with a low birth rate and an aging population. Brazilians are by far the largest foreign community in Portugal. Provisional data indicate that, until June, there were about 252 thousand Brazilians with legal residence in the country, which has 10.1 million inhabitants.
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