About 700,000 visa applications in Portugal are still unanswered, with immigrants in this country urging for faster visa granting.
The President of the Portuguese Association for Social Integration of Immigrants (APISI) told Deutsche Welle that the legalisation process in Portugal is very slow and bureaucratic, expressing his doubts that the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) does not have the capacity to address all problems.
He considers that even with CLP visas, legalisation procedures are not being accelerated through expressions of interest, warning that if there is no greater decentralisation, the situation will continue to remain the same.
However, the President of the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum, Luís Goes Pinheiro, said Deutsche Welle that it would respond quickly to the anxieties of immigrant citizens.
This is an example of the need, at this initial stage, to adjust to all the changes that have occurred very recently and create conditions to solve people’s problems as quickly and effectively as possible. Solving problems in the face of this level of demand pressure implies We always reinvent ourselves day after day and often make emergency decisions. – Goes Pinheiro
The agency expects a year and a half to resolve the nearly 350,000 pending cases as well as 340,000 visa renewals for immigrants residing in this country.
Over one million immigrants have already obtained residence visas in Portugal since last year, while this year alone, more than 306,000 similar visas were granted, according to official sources.
In June this year, authorities in Portugal announced that they would update their online visa application platform as part of efforts to avoid a limited number of applications and long waiting times for a spot.
Such a decision was announced by the Secretary of State of Portuguese Communities, Paulo Cafôfo, stressing that changes are needed in order to make it easier for all those who plan to reach the country for all kinds of purposes.
According to him, in spite of efforts taken to introduce limitations, this hoarding continues to happen, and for such a reason, the update of the platform has been considered a necessary measure to prevent abuse.
Portugal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that new features of the visa portal include a single registration, stressing that once registered, everyone will be eligible to change their password or edit their personal data and also fill out a questionnaire to determine the type of visa they need and attach documents.
