André Ventura argued that we have seen on television “the absolute and live failure of an agency that should never have been created”.

The leader of Chega maintained that AIMA was a “huge failure of the previous Government and that the Government of Luís Montenegro insists on prolonging it”, claiming that, with the end of SEF, there was “no speeding up of the regularisation process” of immigrants and “all police competence was lost”.

“What is happening now shows how out of control immigration in Portugal is. (…) It is the absolute failure of the Government’s immigration strategy,” he said, claiming that “the country is subject to being suspended from the Schengen area.”

André Ventura said that the PSD and the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, spoke out against the creation of AIMA, and had committed themselves in the electoral campaign to “reverse the extinction of the SEF”, accusing them of backtracking on electoral promises.

“Now they say that after all they will maintain AIMA because the European Union (EU) is this and that. In other words, they are going back on what they promised: they are lax with immigration and immigration control,” he said.

Asked whether the SEF should return, André Ventura said yes and that its inspectors should be restored, “who have know-how that no one else has”.

“But above all, it is important that we reestablish a basic rule that I think whoever is watching us understands: only those who have a work contract, or a promise of a work contract, or at least a means of housing, can enter Portugal,” he said.

When asked whether Chega is in favour of remaining in the Schengen area, Ventura replied: “It’s clear”.

“The Schengen area is part of our tradition within the EU, it is what guarantees that there is control at the external border in the EU,” he said.

In these statements to journalists, Ventura also said that he has “a real suspicion” that the prime minister announcing the location of the new Lisbon airport was a way of “diverting attention from the issue of the migration agency”.

“It is at least a very strange coincidence,” he said, calling on the prime minister to focus on the location of the airport on another day, but to change immigration policy now.