“Now I’m sleeping on the street because of my document, since yesterday,” said Ivania Cabral, one of the immigrants spending the night outside AIMA’s premises.
Ivania Cabral, born in Guinea-Bissau, moved to Portugal nearly three years ago as her nine-year-old daughter suffers from interauricular communication, a condition often described as a ‘hole in the heart,’ requiring medical treatment unavailable in their home country.
On Wednesday, Ivania spent the night outside AIMA’s offices. She arrived at 9:00 PM but was unable to receive a token the next morning and thus plans to spend another night at the venue.
Other immigrants, like Abubacar Seidi from Guinea-Bissau, have also been spending nights outside the building. Abubacar has been in Portugal for nearly a year.
Abubacar Seidi mentioned wanting to study technology and computer science at a university in Portugal with his brother, but without residency cards, they were unable to enroll as many institutions require this document.
“We were asked for the residency card. Without it, we cannot study,” Abubacar stated.
Abubacar highlighted that they applied for residency in February, following all necessary steps and sending emails, yet received no response. Therefore, they continue to wait outside AIMA.
In the queue for residency applications was also Jaqueline Resende, who came from Brazil and has lived in Portugal for six years.
Jaqueline said that from today she is illegal in Portugal because her residency application expired. To resolve the situation, she was referred back and forth between AIMA and the Instituto de Registos e Notariado (IRN), which issues documents like the citizen card.
“I only received an email saying they would send me a payment receipt for scheduling, but I couldn’t complete it. Before that, I had tried to email and got a reply saying I needed to go to the IRN. I went to the IRN, and they told me to email AIMA, so it was never resolved,” Jaqueline explained.
According to other immigrants present, the first person to arrive at AIMA’s facilities creates a list based on the order of arrival.
Some people mentioned that they cannot sleep because names are called out during the night to check who is on the list for service, and if there is no response, the name is crossed off.
By around 11:30 PM, the list had 120 names, but about 80 people were present outside the building. Some immigrants noted that certain individuals add their names to the list and leave, returning only in the morning.
Tonight, people stood outside AIMA’s facilities, some sleeping and others awake, with several of them lying or sitting covered with blankets on pieces of cardboard.
The last administrative extension of decree-law 10-A/2020 ended on Wednesday, which recognized expired residency documents as valid. This prompted increased demand at AIMA, with over 100 people spending the night in front of its facilities on that day.
A government source said that as long as immigrants had scheduled their appointment and paid for renewal, their residency title remains valid for 180 days, even after the date passed on Wednesday.
The Minister of the Presidency remarked that the queues for services at the Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA) were unnecessary, asserting that immigrants had the option to handle their documentation online. He noted that about 90,000 individuals managed their documentation this way.
