130,000 Residency Files Still Stuck as Portugal’s AIMA Turns Two

Two Years In, Portugal’s Migration Super-Agency Still Caught Between Promises and Paperwork

Queues are shorter, but they have not disappeared

On a grey October morning in Lisbon’s Alvalade neighbourhood, Mohamed from Bangladesh has already been standing outside the headquarters of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) for three hours. “It was the same when it was SEF,” he sighs, clutching a folder of forms. His frustration mirrors a wider national debate: why, after 24 months of existence, does the organisation that replaced the Foreigners and Borders Service still struggle to keep up?

A political blame game with familiar lines

• Centre-right parties—Social Democrats (PSD), Liberal Initiative (IL) and Chega—argue that today’s backlog is the direct consequence of Socialist governments that dismantled SEF in 2023 without first designing a robust successor.• The Socialist Party (PS) and its allies on the left—Livre and the Communist-Green coalition (CDU)—reply that the present administration starved AIMA of funds and staff, creating the very chaos it now denounces.

Each camp therefore marks AIMA’s second birthday by pointing at the other. António Rodrigues (PSD) calls the agency “damaged at birth” because it inherited an “administrative earthquake” of more than 400,000 pending residency files. On the opposite bench, Socialist deputy Pedro Delgado Alves insists the current government “added new layers of confusion” through abrupt rule changes and budget caps.

What the numbers reveal

– Backlog inherited in 2023: roughly 410,000 files, mostly so-called “expressions of interest” from migrants who arrived on tourist visas but found work.– Files processed since then: about 900,000 decisions, according to the Ministry of the Interior.– Cases still awaiting a final outcome: nearly 130,000, including residence renewals and CPLP permits.– Complaints logged January-August 2025: 1,528 (up 105 % quarter-on-quarter).– Lawsuits in the Lisbon administrative tribunal that mention AIMA: more than 133,000 by mid-October, triple the 2023 figure.

Officials argue that the growing court docket is partly a sign of progress: once a file is decided, applicants can finally challenge a refusal. Lawyers for migrant associations respond that most suits concern “silence”—situations in which AIMA has simply not answered within statutory deadlines.

How did we get here?

AIMA was created by merging SEF’s civil branch with the former High Commission for Migration. The reform aimed to place enforcement (now under police command) and civil services under separate roofs, while promising faster digital workflows. In practice, two incompatible IT systems and the pandemic-era moratorium on deportations produced a perfect storm of applications.

Chega now demands a U-turn: it wants a new border-control body with “full inspection powers” and tougher family-reunification rules. Livre’s Paulo Muacho counters that the priority should be “decent staffing and modern software, not more police officers.” The Communists label the whole merger a “botched operation” and still campaign for a standalone border service.

Government’s rescue checklist

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s cabinet insists the situation is improving and highlights the following steps:

A €19-million budget line for 2025, including performance bonuses.

A special mission unit that has already handled 286,000 of the older ‘expression of interest’ files; its mandate runs until 31 December.

An online portal for residence-permit renewals, targeting holders whose documents expired before 30 June 2025.

Transfer of in-person renewals from the Registry Office back to AIMA to cut red tape.

End of the open-ended ‘expression of interest’ scheme on 23 October, replaced by a regulated labour-migration channel.

A fully digital application platform scheduled for January 2026.

Completion of the controversial gold visa backlog by 2026, expected to raise €85 million in fees.

Critics: ‘Technology alone will not fix a people problem’

The Union of Migration Technicians says AIMA needs 1,300 staff but has filled fewer than 100 posts this year. Forty-nine immigrant associations recently sent an open letter to the President of the Republic, listing systemic failings: unanswered phone lines, contradictory document requests and rejection letters that cite Schengen alerts which do not exist.

Rui Marques of the think-tank Consensus on Immigration warns that the agency risks becoming “a paperwork factory with no integration strategy.” He argues that Portugal’s future labour needs—particularly in construction and elder care—make it urgent to link residence permits with language training and job matching.

What to watch next

Parliament is due to vote before Christmas on a new returns law intended to speed up deportations while safeguarding due process. Separately, the Ministry of the Interior is drafting an overhaul of AIMA’s organisational chart and negotiating with unions to put hundreds of external cultural mediators on the payroll.

Back in Alvalade, Mohamed finally reaches the security gate. He will, at best, leave with a password that lets him book another appointment online. “I just want to pay taxes and work,” he says. His words capture both the promise and the predicament of an agency still searching for its rhythm two years after its ambitious debut.