The Minister of Internal Affairs announced today the entry of about a hundred new inspectors to the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) who "within a few weeks" will start the course.
"It is with great satisfaction that I see the conditions in place that will allow us within a few weeks to start the 11th internship course that will allow us to add nearly a hundred new inspectors to the 250 we have recruited over the past three years," said Eduardo Cabrita, at the inauguration ceremony of 100 new SEF inspectors.
The minister presided, via videoconference, at the inauguration ceremony of the 100 inspectors who completed the 10th stage of the Investigation and Inspection Career of the Foreigners and Borders Service.
These nearly 100 new inspectors who "within a few weeks" will start the 11th internship course were selected through a recruitment pool.
In his speech, Eduardo Cabrita highlighted the “decisive role” of the SEF, stressing that the course of these 100 new inspectors who have now completed their internship represents “a historic moment” for this security service and corresponds to a “commitment to rejuvenation and reinforcement of the SEF that is unparalleled in any other agency of the MAI'.
The official also stated that «Portugal became fundamentally a country of foreign citizens», having in 2019 surpassed «for the first time in its history, the level of more than half a million» of immigrants living in the country.
According to Eduardo Cabrita, around half a million foreign citizens acquired Portuguese nationality through naturalization in the last 13 years due to changes in the nationality law, in 2007.
“Foreign citizens are an important part of our community life. We owe foreign citizens the picking of the fruit, much of the work in civil construction and restoration. Without foreign citizens there would probably be no wine production, there would be no olive groves, but we also have foreign citizens who are researchers, entrepreneurs, who are students, with an increasingly significant contribution to the renewal of Portuguese society», he maintained.
For the minister, it is in this context that the SEF has "a decisive role in the affirmation of these humanist values" and "of an inclusive society", which leads Portugal to be "repeatedly recognized as one of the countries that best integrate migrants".
Eduardo Cabrita also stressed that the SEF “has responsibilities in the legal migration programs” that Portugal wants to promote, but also has “a decisive role” in the fight against human trafficking.
The minister also said that the Portuguese presidency of the European Union, during the first half of 2021, "will be marked by two facts that have fundamentally to do with the activity of the SEF", namely the asylum and migration pact and the entry into operation of the new model of the European border management agency FRONTEX.
Of the 100 inspectors who have now completed the internship, 12 took office at the SEF headquarters and represented the rest, who took the oath by videoconference due to the restrictions in place under the Covid-19 pandemic.
The lack of inspectors at SEF has been one of the problems most raised by the union that represents these professionals.
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