António Leitão Amaro, Minister of the Presidency, confirmed this Saturday
The Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) will begin notifying 4,574 foreign citizens next week to voluntarily leave the country within 20 days, the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, confirmed this Saturday.
“The Government was informed this week by AIMA that it is issuing 4,574 notifications for foreign citizens in an illegal situation to leave national territory,” said Leitão Amaro, in statements to journalists, at the Government headquarters, in Lisbon.
According to the governor, this is the first group of immigrants notified of a total of 18,000 rejections.
Leitão Amaro's statements came after Jornal de Notícias (JN) reported this Saturday that more than 4,000 immigrants will have to leave the country.
“In fact, what we have ahead of us are these approximately 18 thousand notifications for abandonment of the national territory”, he highlighted.
Leitão Amaro also warned that this is “the first set of decisions” by AIMA and that there are still “another 110 thousand processes”, stating that “most of them will be granted”, but there will “probably also be more rejections and more notifications to abandon the national territory”.
“This information confirms that immigration policy in Portugal has become one of regulated immigration, and that immigration rules must be complied with. Failure to comply has consequences and, in these cases, these are situations that violate Portuguese and European rules for being in national territory,” he stressed.
And he added: “For the sake of justice for those who comply with the rules in Portugal, Portuguese and foreigners, a State that enforces the rules – a State of law – needs to draw the consequences that the law requires, and what the law requires is to notify the person to leave. A period of 20 days to voluntarily leave, after which the so-called coercive removal must occur.”