"PJ inspectors from the former Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) refuse to be forced to remain at airport borders six months after the initially scheduled date of October 29," the Judiciary Police Criminal Investigation Personnel Union (SPIC-PJ) stated in a note sent to Lusa.

The union states that the inspectors, who were supposed to return to the PJ and had already been notified to report to their respective units, "were surprised 11 days before the government's new intention" to extend their duties at the airports for another six months.

This arrangement indicates that many of the inspectors had already "begun their transfers to their new work locations."

The SPIC-PJ warns that "if the government is not sensitive to the inspectors' situation and insists on keeping them indiscriminately at the borders, it will be creating further tension in an already turbulent area and jeopardising the social peace that PJ inspectors, in the name of national security, have always striven to maintain."

When the Immigration and Borders Service was dissolved on October 29, 2023, the inspectors were transferred to the PJ, leaving 324 members of the former SEF (Secretariat of Foreigners and Borders) in the PSP (Public Security Police) on "temporary assignment" to control air borders.

This regime established that inspectors would be gradually transferred to the PJ until October 29, 2025.

According to the PSP, there are currently 129 former SEF inspectors still serving in the police force due to training constraints, which lack Frontex-certified trainers, available resources for training, and facilities.

The union considers the lack of human resources used by "the PSP national leadership to justify the request for a mission extension to be a fallacy that reality completely disproves."

"There is no lack of PSP resources for the borders. Many more officers are already trained in border control than the number of inspectors with which the now-defunct SEF performed much broader functions," says Rui Paiva, president of SPIC-PJ, quoted in the statement.

Rui Paiva argued that it is "completely incomprehensible that the three entities responsible for the borders—PSP, GNR, and the Internal Security System (SSI)—have no way to jointly ensure the legal requirements, yet two years later, they continue to rely on nearly 130 PJ inspectors to perform these duties."

The SPIC-PJ points out that "the real reason for this dependence on PJ personnel is the fact that the PSP insists on dedicating vast human resources to criminal investigations, the jurisdiction of which the law assigns to the Judiciary Police."

"This decision led to the paradox of having Judicial Police inspectors controlling borders at airports, a function of the PSP, while PSP agents continue to handle cases of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and document forgery, which are the responsibility of the PJ," states Rui Paiva, emphasizing that "the time has come for the Government to realize that it is facing an organizational problem within the system, not a problem of capacity or a lack of resources within the PSP."

The union also notes that it informed the Government "that there is a fairly reasonable number of inspectors willing to remain at the borders, an asset that can be put to good use," but it does not accept that "now, 'at the last minute,' under a false pretext of necessity, those who legitimately intend to serve in their own police force are being forced to continue to perform what the PSP is responsible for."