“As the country prepares for a new organization in border control and foreigner management, the Public Security Police reaffirms its full readiness and capability to assume these new competencies”, stated Luís Carrilho during the ceremony marking the 158th anniversary of the PSP.
The director of the PSP also declared that “the PSP is ready to ensure a safe, effective transition that respects legality and human dignity”, considering that “this reinforcement of responsibilities is not just a mission”, but “also a sign of the trust the State places in the institution”.
The Government’s proposal to create the National Unit of Foreigners and Borders within the PSP, dubbed ‘mini-SEF’, will be debated on Friday in the Assembly of the Republic, following the rejection of a similar bill by the PS and Chega in the last legislature.
“We take on this challenge with the same spirit that has driven us for 158 years. We recognize that migratory phenomena, the international context, and border dynamics require qualified, humane, and firm responses. The PSP is prepared. We will be, as we always have been, where the country needs us most,” he clarified.
The Government insists on the measure, which reassigns to the PSP a specific unit following the disbandment of the Foreigners and Borders Service in 2023. Its functions were distributed among the PSP, GNR, PJ, and the then-established Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA), responsible for returns, a system which, according to the Government, fails to effectively enforce immigrant expulsion orders.
According to the Government, this new unit will be “a border police” to control entries, oversee immigrants across the country, and remove “those who do not comply with the rules”.
When questioned by journalists about the shortage of police officers, Luís Carrilho indicated that this July, 459 new officers will complete their course and be deployed nationwide, predominantly in Lisbon, where the need is greatest, and a new training course with around 800 candidates will commence soon.
“This is the process we must pursue to balance outgoing human resources and increase in light of new challenges,” he said.
In his ceremony speech, the PSP director stressed that in recent years, the police “have experienced a reduction in personnel contrary to the increase in responsibilities assumed and the significant rise in operational and administrative activities”.
“We cannot ignore the structural challenges facing the sustainability of our staff. Reinforcing the PSP’s human resources is a national endeavor. It is imperative to make the profession more attractive through competitive remuneration, career stability, work-life balance support, and public communication campaigns to enhance the prestige and mission of being a police officer,” he emphasized.
Luís Carrilho advocated increasing “professionals serving the PSP in a reasonable timeframe to reach a necessary number to fully meet all missions entrusted to the PSP”, in addition to increasing “by about 7% the percentage of non-policing professionals to free officers for operational activities”.
“This ambition demands strategic planning and, above all, political will,” he said, suggesting that it is “necessary to commit to annually doubling the number of police career entries relative to retirements” and to significantly increase the number of candidates admitted annually to the officer course.
Currently, the PSP has approximately 20,000 police officers and around 600 technical career professionals.
