The general secretary of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, wrote to the prime minister, Luís Montenegro, asking him to intervene in relation to foreign higher education students who came to Portugal with protection status because of the war in Ukraine.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, dated Friday, to which the Lusa agency had access, José Luís Carneiro states that he was aware that several of these young people “are being notified of the intention (or even the final decision) to cancel the aforementioned status and the need to leave the country” and that he had already had the opportunity to “meet with a group of his representatives who presented their dramatic situation and their perplexity at the sudden reassessment of their situation”.
The secretary general of the PS appeals to the prime minister “so that, together with the Minister of the Presidency and the services he supervises, in particular the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA), ensure with humanity that the case calls for the considered processing of all situations”.
José Luís Carneiro asks for “the evaluation of the possibility of being classified under a title appropriate to your situation whenever the requirements of international protection are not met and due coordination with educational institutions to avoid the interruption and/or disruption of your academic careers, in which the Portuguese Republic has already invested so much”.
“Furthermore, we are faced with countless cases of successful integration into the academic life of their institutions and the cities that have hosted them since 2022mastering the language and pursuing studies in a professional field that is central to the life of our community, where they can one day potentially contribute to the success of the national health system or the NHS itself, if they come to settle among us”, argues the former Minister of Internal Administration.
At the end of the letter, the secretary general of the PS expresses the expectation that, “given the creation of legitimate aspirations so that they could continue and complete their studies” in Portugalthe Prime Minister will be committed “to guaranteeing the fair and humane treatment of these young people, in accordance with the best traditions that Portugal knew how to call upon in the past in the face of similar cases”.
At stake are “young higher education students in Portuguese university institutions who, since 2022, benefit from international protection status granted by national authorities after the invasion launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, where they continued their studies”, says José Luís Carneiro.
“Despite the diversity of reported situations, they are mostly medical students, in some cases even attending the final years of their respective degrees.having developed their academic careers based on the expectations generated by their reception in Portugal and the successive renewal of their registrations and the absence of contacts in the sense of a possible irregularity in the aforementioned status or the precariousness of their situation while they continued their studies”, he adds.
The secretary general of the PS argues that, “without prejudice to the necessary assessment of each case in light of the law in force at the date of its reception in Portugal, which is not disputedthe Republic must not ignore the expectations created among this community, nor proceed abruptly and without sensitivity to the fragile situation in which they find themselves”.
José Luís Carneiro disputes the idea of ”surprising students at the start of the academic year with notifications that could end their ability to complete their studies and, once again, have to look for new institutions for this purpose”.