At least 3,342 legal professionals have applied to provide services to the State in processing pending immigrant cases, the Bar Association and the Order of Solicitors and Enforcement Agents announced today.
In the case of lawyers, there were 2,592 applications, and there is a record of at least 750 solicitors applying for the tender for “provision of services for the processing of pending residence permit applications and renewals,” which “are being handled by the AIMA (Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum) Mission Structure.”
The candidates will now be evaluated to confirm if they meet the criteria. These services, provided remotely, will be carried out by lawyers, trainee lawyers, or solicitors, who “will integrate pools and teams to be formed according to the typology of the assigned cases,” as stated in the tender.
The administrative procedures will be paid at 7.5 euros each, and each legal professional will be responsible for up to 200 cases. In the announcement launching the tender, the two orders highlighted “the honor and privilege of being able to contribute to solving such a serious problem, which currently affects thousands of people.”
In the regulations, AIMA safeguards against the risk of conflicts of interest raised by some unions, imposing strict rules on candidates. Service providers are “prohibited from having any interests or connections with the cases being processed or with the respective applicants” directly or indirectly, through law firms and colleagues with whom they share an office or with whom “they may have personal, family or professional relationships.”
Additionally, providers “are also prohibited from providing any service to applicants themselves, through the company they are part of, through office colleagues or others with whom they may have personal, family or professional relationships, in the 12 months following the provision of the service.”
The requirements for registration will be verified by the respective Orders and include “attendance at a prior training action, to be provided by the Mission Structure for the Recovery of Pending Processes at AIMA.”
On March 5, agreements were signed between AIMA and the two orders, but only now has the protocol been implemented. The application period ended on Monday.
At the end of 2023, Portuguese authorities estimated the number of immigrants with pending cases at 400,000. In June, the Government amended the foreigners’ law, imposing new restrictions, including the end of expressions of interest, a resource that allowed a foreign citizen with a tourist visa to start their regularization process in Portugal.
