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President of AIMA laments lack of attendance to appointments: “15%”

“In 2024, solely regarding data from the AIMA (Agency for Integration, Migrations, and Asylum), we had a 15% no-show rate for scheduled appointments,” stated Pedro Portugal Gaspar during the inauguration ceremony of the Local Support Center for the Integration of Migrants (CLAIM) in São Pedro do Sul, in the Viseu district.

He pointed out that “the primary complaint from users is the difficulty in scheduling appointments,” despite efforts to improve the situation, which increased from one thousand appointments per day to more than six thousand.

According to Pedro Portugal Gaspar, these no-shows lead to an unfair situation because “there are people seeking appointments and others who have appointments scheduled and do not attend.”

At the end of the ceremony, Pedro Portugal Gaspar told journalists that when someone misses an appointment, “it ends up wasting a slot that could go to another person who is waiting longer.”

He explained that there is already “a group of appointments managed by municipalities, which does not exclude the possibility of expanding to other areas of the country, under a contractual logic where AIMA covers the cost.”

This will be “a matter to be discussed later with municipalities if there is interest, a more technical matter,” he emphasized, adding that the second step cannot be taken without the first, which is the creation of the CLAIM.

“Today we’ve achieved that first step; we will progress based on need, if there is sufficient demand. The door is not closed; there will be opportunities to explore further,” he assured.

Currently, there are around 170 CLAIM centers in place. Pedro Portugal Gaspar highlighted the receptiveness that municipalities have shown, making them “a highly privileged partner” of the central administration.

The vice-president of the São Pedro do Sul Council, Pedro Mouro, informed journalists that the municipality hosts between 700 and 800 migrants from at least 24 nationalities.

“In the last two to three years, we have received many migrants in our municipality. We felt it necessary, beyond the issue of legalization, to address integration. There’s nothing better than having a CLAIM in São Pedro do Sul,” he justified.

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