In Portugal, there’s a delay in processing about 700,000 visa applications, and immigrants want officials to make it faster. The person in charge of helping immigrants, the President of the Portuguese Association for Social Integration of Immigrants (APISI), isn’t happy with how slow and complicated the visa process is. He thinks things need to be less centralized to handle the issues better. Even though they introduced something called CLP visas, the processing isn’t getting faster. The head of the Agency for Integration, Migrations, and Asylum, Luís Goes Pinheiro, says they are committed to dealing with immigrant concerns quickly.
The agency plans to clear the backlog of almost 350,000 pending cases and renew 340,000 visas for immigrants living in Portugal within the next year and a half. Since last year, over a million immigrants got residence visas in Portugal, and more than 306,000 got similar visas this year.
To tackle these challenges, officials in Portugal plan to update their online visa application system. The Secretary of State of Portuguese Communities, Paulo Cafôfo, says they need changes to make it simpler for people planning to come to the country. The Foreign Affairs Ministry plans to add new features to the visa website, like a single registration system. Once people sign up, they can change their password, update personal info, and answer questions to figure out the right visa type, making the process easier and preventing misuse.
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