The new National Unit for Foreigners and Borders (UNEF), inaugurated a week ago within the PSP, has integrated the powers of returning and removing citizens in an irregular situation in the country, which until now belonged to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA). According to the deputy national director of the PSP, João Ribeiro, speaking to Expresso, the unit, already dubbed "mini-SEF," is receiving "25 cubic meters of pending return and removal cases from national territory" daily, saying he is prepared "for a pessimistic scenario in which there are 100,000 active or semi-active return cases." "I say semi-active because some are almost 50 years old but are not considered closed, several predate the closure of the SEF, and we'll have to see..." he said.

In Lisbon alone, there will be 20,000 active cases, according to the estimate presented by Superintendent João Ribeiro, the only approximate estimate the PSP has. In fact, the resolution of this AIMA "legacy" began precisely in the capital, currently with the arrival of cases awaiting a decision since 2019. "We still need to know about the rest of the country, where they have not yet been accounted for and are not yet being transferred to the new unit," he emphasized, adding that, according to AIMA, "three linear kilometres of cases" will be handed over to UNEF.

According to the PSP's deputy national director, the "return office" will work in two phases: one resolving the past, the other the present, to avoid creating new pending issues. In its first week of operation, UNEF has already received new cases, sent directly to the unit by courts and security forces. Regarding these cases, João Ribeiro explains that "voluntary return will be encouraged as much as possible, with support from Frontex or the International Organization for Migration (IOM), with support for departure and even post-return."