The president of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) announced today that from October more vacancies will be opened for family reunification processes, seeking to accelerate the integration of regularized immigrants.
“We are now going to enter this month of October with a great acceleration in relation to family reunification processes”, said Pedro Portugal Gaspar, in an interview with Lusa.
This type of process was not transferred to the mission structure that is resolving pending processes and is “an area in which we will move forward”, with priority over processes relating to changes of residence for investment.
The objective is to start “with an effective response capacity” of the services, expanding the scheduling offer to a “very high age range of minors”, close to 18 years old.
Immigrants with minor children will be able to register on the portal and request an appointment for family reunification, thus being able to bring their families, which will bring “some uncertainty regarding the number of people” to regularize.
It will be “an action to be developed with great emphasis and commitment on the part of AIMA”, he added.
Family reunification is something demanded by immigrant associations and is considered one of the most important factors for the integration of communities.
The presence of children at school and spouses provides a situation of daily normality for those who are in Portugal, say several experts.