The inspectors of the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service (SEF), whose extinction was confirmed on Thursday by the Council of Ministers, will only stop being present at Portuguese air, sea, and land borders in 2025, reports JN.
SEF inspectors are needed to support the GNR and PSP in border control temporarily, a responsibility that will be exclusively carried out by the elements of these two security forces for two years.
Moreover, measures have been confirmed to protect the status and remuneration of inspectors, and that allows, under certain conditions, the signing of mutual agreement termination agreements.
The SEF Investigation and Inspection Career Inspectors’ Union has already canceled the strike it had scheduled until next Monday, April 10, 2023.
According to the Minister of Internal Affairs, José Luís Carneiro, in the first year, there will be 370 current SEF employees at air borders under the responsibility of the PSP and another 100 at sea and land borders under the responsibility of the GNR.
In the second year, the workforce will be reduced by half. In the end, only police and military personnel will remain.
The SEF’s current investigative competencies, mainly related to illegal immigration and human trafficking, will be exercised by the Judicial Police (PJ).
As for SEF’s administrative functions, workers will be divided between the Institute of Registries and Notaries and the new Portuguese Agency for Minorities, Migrations, and Asylum, whose creation was also approved on Thursday by the Government.
The restructuring of SEF was approved in November 2021 in parliament but had been postponed.
The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes, told JN, “We are facing a change towards a more humanistic, more supportive, and more agile vision for those who arrive in the country.”
