A solution is being prepared for immigrants from India, Nepal and Bangladesh, who have submitted a formal application to the SEF for a residence permit.
The Foreign and Border Service (SEF) is preparing a response to legalize some 170,000 immigrants from countries outside the European space and Portuguese-speaking with pending files, the Minister of Interior Administration said Thursday.
After the SEF created a portal in March to automatically grant residence permits to thousands of citizens of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) with pending cases, now a solution is being prepared for the rest of immigrants, specifically those from India , Nepal and Bangladesh. , who have submitted an expression of interest (Application formalized before the SEF to obtain a residence permit).
“The SEF is preparing a comprehensive response, specifically with the agency for administrative modernization and with other state institutionsspecifically with the Instituto dos Registo e do Notariado (IRN) to seek to respond to the approximately 170,000 expressions of interest from citizens of third countries, outside the European Union and from other countries that are not part of the CPLP”, said José Luís Carneiro journalists at the press conference held after the meeting of the Council of Ministers.
According to the minister, the objective is that, by the end of October, when the process of extinction of the SEF concludes, these citizens, who have presented expressions of interest to the SEF as of 2020, have their situation in the country regularized.
The Aliens and Borders Service will be extinguished in October
José Luís Carneiro highlighted that in 2020 and 2021, during the covid-19 pandemic, these expressions of interest accumulated because the collection of biometric data to obtain residence permits implies a trip to the SEF and this was not possible due to the lockdowns. .
As part of the SEF merger process The Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum will be created (AIMA), which will replace this service in administrative matters regarding immigration.
In a balance made to the Lusa agency, the SEF announced that the portal made available for the granting of residence permits to citizens of the CPLP granted more than 113,000 of these titles, with Brazilians representing almost 83% of the new regularized immigrants. in Portugal.
Source: Observadora
