50 officials versus 1.2 million applications: the collapse is already here

Imagine: fifty civil servants for nearly 1.2 million applications. That's how the Vigo Immigration Unit —UTEX— is, with a backlog that promises to be historic. And that's not all: according to CSIF, there are still 500,000 files that haven't even been loaded into the 'Mercurio' system.

Each file has a three-month deadline to be resolved. But with this staff —only 50 people— the union considers it very likely that many applications will end up denied by administrative silence. In other words: if the Administration does not respond in time, the file is simply archived. To avoid that disaster, the Secretary of State for Migration has proposed a fix: pay 10 euros per file to civil servants who want to work overtime. The problem is that the Treasury has not yet approved the expenditure —about five million euros— so for now, everything is up in the air.

But the backlog is not just at UTEX. Once the regularizations are granted, the Police will have to issue the TIE —foreigner identity cards—. And there, the staffing levels are already at rock bottom, with daily computer failures and no reinforcements in sight. CSIF demands that the 504 temporary workers requested by the General Directorate of the Police be incorporated once and for all, but they recall that in total about 2,000 officers are missing. So things don't look good.

Yes, there are 150 people from Tragsa and Tragsatec lending a hand, but the final approval can only be given by a civil servant. Checking dates, cross-referencing data, monitoring stays... all of that falls on those 50. A task that, according to CSIF, is simply unfeasible if urgent measures are not taken. Move, because time is running out.

If you submitted your application on time and still haven't received a response, don't relax. The three-month deadline starts counting from when the complete file is registered. If that time passes without news, watch out, because they can deny you by administrative silence. So you know: check the status of your file and, if you have any doubts, seek help. Don't take risks.

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