Regrouping. Marques Mendes supports regulation

Presidential candidate Luís Marques Mendes considered, this Monday, that schools are crucial for the good integration of immigrants, praising the AD Government for having, in the previous legislature, created the role of linguistic mediators.

This afternoon, Marques Mendes visited the Visconde de Juromenha School Group, in Mem Martins, Sintra, a school attended by students of 52 nationalities, with almost a third of the 1,500 students being of foreign origin.

After a visit of around an hour to the group, where he exchanged words with some students of Angolan, Brazilian or Tajik origin, Marques Mendes told journalists that immigration needs to be regulated, but also integrated, and “one of the most effective ways to help immigrants integrate well is through schools”.

“Because a child, or a young foreigner, who goes to school, learns Portuguese, feels good and comfortable with his or her classmates, friends and the school, is someone who comes home and makes a family happy. If it helps them speak Portuguese, it helps in the teaching of the Portuguese language and, therefore, integration is easier” , he argued.

The presidential candidate, supported by the PSD, highlighted the importance of schools “to regulate and integrate immigrants” and praised the “decisive role” of teachers, stressing that, often, there are students who arrive without knowing how to speak “a word of English” or Portuguese and manage to be integrated.

On the day that the Government meets in the Council of Ministers to approve changes to the nationality law, Marques Mendes considered that the executive did well to define immigration as a priority for this legislature.

“This issue is, in fact, a priority issue and I would like to draw attention to a measure that was already implemented by the previous government — and is therefore already in force — which is the idea of ​​creating linguistic and cultural mediators in schools. For example, here in this school there is at least one. I think this is a good trend,” he said.

When asked, however, whether these measures are not insufficient — given that, for example, in the school he visited, there is only one language mediator for around 500 foreign students — Marques Mendes responded that “all resources will always be scarce”, but added that “the important thing is the final result”, he said.

And, according to the presidential candidate, the result he saw in this school is “a fantastic environment”, with “good integration”, students of “many different nationalities” where, even those who, initially, only knew how to speak Russian, learned to speak Portuguese.

“Therefore, we must talk about the things that are bad, but we must also value the things that are good,” he argued.

Regarding whether he agrees with limitations on family reunification, as advocated by the Prime Minister, Marques Mendes said that he has nothing “against the general theory” of measures of this nature, but wants to wait to see what the “specific decision of the Government” will be.

The presidential candidate considered that family reunification is “good, positive and conducive to integration”, speaking out against a total suspension, as Chega has advocated, but said he understands that it needs to be regulated. “I understand that there is a set of rules to be defined, namely under what conditions the family comes, namely in terms of employment and other situations”, he said.

Regarding changes to the law so that naturalized citizens lose their nationality if they commit crimes, Marques Mendes did not want to comment without knowing what the executive will propose on this subject.

“It is not irrelevant whether it is in one direction or another. There are political problems, human problems and problems of a constitutional nature. Therefore, here I really have to wait to see what the specific text is, and only then give an opinion”, he said.