Experts say that, to avoid this situation, immigrants should appeal administratively, or even judicially, against the agency's decisions, which have already rejected 108,000 cases.
Immigrants whose applications for residence permits in Portugal have been rejected by the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) (https://aima.gov.pt/pt) may be asked to voluntarily leave the country. According to experts interviewed by PÚBLICO Brasil, this is the last — and sad — stage of the process. According to calculations by the Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, António Leitão Amaro, of the 221,000 residence permit applications analyzed in the rst three months of the task force that began at the Hindu Center in Lisbon, 108,000 were rejected, most of them due to failure to pay the required fees, such as biometrics.
The voluntary departure letter from Portugal is an instrument used by the government in cases of those who are in Portuguese territory illegally. And, according to lawyer Catarina Zuccaro, all immigrants who are unable to reverse AIMA's refusals will be added to the list of people likely to be asked to leave the country. "All those who receive this letter have 20 days to leave Portugal," she says. In a more radical move, the government could resort to extradition.
There is, however, a way to avoid these harsher measures, explains Catarina. The way is to appeal against AIMA's decision, either administratively or judicially. In other words, the 108,000 immigrants who had their residence permit applications denied can request a review of their applications, including paying the fees required by law. But it is necessary to race against time, because the longer these requests for reconsideration are delayed, the greater the chances that AIMA's refusal will become nal. "We know that there are people being notied to resolve pending issues, especially those related to lack of documents," she says.
Attorney Larissa Belo emphasizes that one cannot passively accept the rejection of residency applications by AIMA. “The Code of Administrative Procedure (CPA) requires that the public service notify people of any decision and the reason for it in the event of a denial. This communication must be sent to the people’s addresses, with a receipt signed by the recipients,” she explains. It is this receipt record, a pink sheet, that will be the basis for appealing the decision. The deadlines to contest any denial by AIMA vary from 30 business days to three months, depending on the situation.
Larissa adds that immigrants whose residency applications were denied by AIMA can anticipate the facts. “For example, if the person did not pay the fee charged by the agency because they were not notied, they should send a registered letter to the agency asking which email or home address the payment alert was sent to. Upon receiving this letter, an AIMA employee will have to sign the receipt of the correspondence. This receipt will be evidence when appealing against the denial of the residency application. It will be a safeguard,” she emphasizes. The lawyer says that several people did not receive the notice to pay the fees to AIMA because the processes involving expressions of interest were made using third-party addresses, that is, they ended up being diverted. “In addition, since there was no government awareness campaign about the need to pay the fees to the agency, many people who received the payment notice simply ignored it because they believed it was a scam, which is very common on the internet,” she points out. “Therefore, anyone who feels harmed should question AIMA’s decision,” she reinforces. According to lawyer Alfredo Roque, from VE Consultoria, many of the 108,000 immigrants whose residency applications were rejected by AIMA would not be in this situation if the service centers set up by the agency, within the task force, had decision-making power. “What happens is that the centers have become document receiving centers. The people who receive them are stampers, and they are not even able to say that everything is in accordance with AIMA’s requirements. The aws will only be discovered later, when everything is analyzed by the agency’s employees,” he says.
This assessment is also made by Catarina Zuccaro. “Even with the service centers to resolve pending issues — there were more than 400 thousand stuck cases— immigrants end up being harmed by a service that is awed. Many of the problems found later in the documentation could be solved in the centers themselves, if the attendants were better trained”, she emphasizes. In view of this, those who feel harmed by AIMA’s refusal can appeal against the decisions, as this is essential to avoid more drastic measures, such as the voluntary invitation to leave Portugal.