The Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) was abolished today at 00:00, with the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) taking effect, which will succeed this service in administrative matters of issuing documents to foreigners.
The powers of the Foreigners and Borders Service will be transferred to seven bodies, with police officers passing to the PSP, GNR and PJ, while administrative functions related to foreign citizens will go to the new agency and the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN), with the Borders and Foreigners Coordination Unit also being created, which will operate under the authority of the secretary-general of the Internal Security System, in addition to some inspectors also being transferred to the Tax Authority.
Inspectors will be transferred to the PJ and non-police employees to AIMA and IRN, with “a transitional functional assignment regime”, which allows SEF inspectors to perform functions, for up to two years, in the GNR and PSP in positions of air and sea border.
In the GNR, which will be responsible for maritime and land borders, 80 inspectors will be assigned, while 324 will be in the PSP, which takes control of the air borders.
The PJ has reserved competence in investigating illegal immigration and human trafficking.
Police databases and information systems on borders and foreigners and international police cooperation are managed by the Borders and Foreigners Coordination Unit.
AIMA, which inherits from the SEF around 300 pending immigration legalization processes, will also succeed the High Commission for Migrations, which is also extinct today.
This transfer of skills takes place at a time when more than a million immigrants live in Portugal.
The restructuring of the SEF was decided by the previous Government and approved by the Assembly of the Republic in November 2021, having been postponed twice.
SEF was created in 1986 and was a security service integrated into the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
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