In responses sent to Lusa, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) highlighted the “objective of resolving the more than 400,000 pending processes for analysis” and highlighted the “integrated and robust logistical operation” underway to have the Mission Structure's first service centre ready by September 9.

This service centre, which will operate between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., “in addition to having AIMA employees, will also involve employees from civil society organisations that have already received technical training from the security forces and other competent authorities”.

AIMA also reiterated the need to regularise immigrants who were already working in Portugal until June 3, 2024, and who meet the legal requirements to obtain a residence permit, in reference to the date on which the Government presented the Action Plan for Migration and which immediately revoked the regime of expressing interest as a way of entering Portugal.

On Wednesday, Diário de Notícias reported that the Radha Krishna Hindu temple in Telheiras would be one of the service locations created by AIMA's Mission Structure to help with the recovery of pending issues. The Hindu community center was previously used as one of the vaccination centers against Covid-19 during the pandemic.

The opening of the Telheiras service centre, scheduled for Monday, fulfils the intention expressed on 22 August by the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, to have the first centres to assist immigrants “up and running in September”.

The minister said at the time that the largest of these units would be located in Lisbon. “We promised and created a mission structure, which is working, contracting spaces with local authorities, other entities and non-governmental organisations, and the Orders, so that we can have service centres and back-office teams to start processing these processes much more quickly”, the minister stated at the time.