According to The Portuguese news agency, migrants gathered in Lisbon to condemn them for being "treated like garbage".
▲(Image from Portuguese news)
Today, around a hundred migrants march in Lisbon, denouncing them as being "treated like garbage" and alerting the SEF to the unfair distribution of residence permits in the online voucher system.
"We are tired of this situation, the biggest reason for the demonstration is despair, SEF makes us have to look for reservation slots in the system 24 hours a day, but we are workers, not thieves and robbers, we are paying taxes to the Portuguese government, the government must be aware of this." The organizer of the demonstration, Juliet Christino, told Lusa.
For the Brazilian, who has not been granted a residence permit in Portugal since 2019, the system of assigning passwords through the computer platform of the Aliens and Border Services Agency (SEF) has fueled illegal acts and extortion.
A Lisbon immigrant said, "Some people are lucky, some people are paying, a lawyer tries to charge me 300 euros [to book a SEF service quota], I know a person who is here for three or four years and finally despairs, and finally pays for an appointment, but I don't want to, because it's very unfair." ”
The lisbon-focused immigrants argue that the assignment of residence permits is carried out in chronological order, that the process from the SEF giving the "green light" to receiving the documents is automated, that the documents are delivered digitally, and that they argue that there is "no reason to stay" after the documents have been approved.
Juliet Christino explains, "We want to be able to put the documents on the online portal and wait up to 90 days, waiting for the SEF approval documents, which is the statutory deadline, but the approval takes 8 months to a year, and then there is another platform that needs to be arranged, and what we ask for is to be arranged in chronological order." ”
"Now the people who come here don't have jobs, they always look at their phones when they have time, and they hope to make an appointment, and I, the person who has paid taxes here for two years and contributed to social insurance, don't want to be treated unfairly."
For the organizers of the demonstrations, the absence of a residence card amounts to imprisonment and deprivation of the right to travel, buy a car or even find a job.
"We have no right to live in another country, we are imprisoned here. Can't travel all over the EU because I don't have residency, we're tied up, it's not just Brazilians or Africans, it's all migrants, and this happens to all migrants and we're treated like garbage. The demonstrators sighed.
The Immigrant Solidarity Association denounced that there are "real mafias" selling vacant reservations to immigrants at the SEF for hundreds of euros. "Organized mafias and law firms took all the reservation slots. The association's president said: "When they open for appointments, they last 15 minutes on the SEF platform. He noted that migrants are being "exploited" and charged "hundreds of euros for appointments."
The Interior Minister admitted in parliament in early June that there was "illegal appropriation" of the SEF's immigration digital sheet and said the system was currently under review.
Eduardo Cabrita stressed that the internal and prosecutorial investigations did not uncover criminal liability, but found "wrong practices, particularly that some law firms monopolized the opening of digital appointments" and "placed limits on the number of appointments."
BE condemned the fact that it takes more than two years for immigrants to get an appointment with the Aliens and Border Services Agency (SEF) and the difficulty of accessing the SAPA platform.
In June, SEF told Lusa that the vacancies for pending processing of immigrants at the service were "fully filled by October 30" and that there were no plans to open new appointment slots.
The data released at the time also showed that the situation in Portugal was temporarily normalized in Portugal by 223,000 foreigners with pending cases at the SEF due to the covid-19 pandemic, including in the April 30 order, which allowed them to obtain user numbers, access to national health services, social welfare support and the conclusion of lease contracts and jobs, as well as the opening of bank accounts and the contracting of basic public services. (Original title: "Immigrants Are Treated Like Garbage")
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