Renewing My Immigration Status in Brazil
HAVANA TIMES – Every year, the Federal Police calls us to update our refugee protocol at their office, located in the Santa Cândida neighborhood here in Curitiba. Recently, my wife and I went, with the secret hope that this time we would receive our long-awaited residency.
It wasn’t the case. We’ll have to keep waiting. Cubans don’t get residency very quickly, to say the least. Before arriving in this country, we had heard it takes between 2 and 4 years to be granted. Here, we’ve heard even less optimistic forecasts from other Cubans.
Being a political refugee in Brazil gives you practically all rights. You can work, rent a house, have a CPF (individual taxpayer identification), open bank accounts, etc. And that’s great at the start, but that “practically,” when the years pass and you settle down, isn’t enough.
As a refugee, for example, you can’t finance a house or buy a car on credit. You can’t travel outside the country without resetting the clock on obtaining residency. You can’t even fantasize about bringing your parents here for a vacation with you. In short, it offers some limitations that, when your life starts expanding, become uncomfortable.
Recently, the Federal Police has tightened the requirements to maintain or improve immigration status. This is because many people have been using Brazil as a bridge to reach a third country.
We received an email that set a deadline we had to respond to or risk having our case filed. Of course, we responded without any major consequences.
However, I’ve heard of a couple of cases that are complicated. The first is a young man who lost his document a month before the protocol renewal. Since obtaining a new document must be done three months in advance, he risks becoming illegal in the country, so he has had to hire a lawyer.
The other case is that of a young woman who couldn’t open the mentioned ultimatum email, and now her case has been filed.
I’ve heard immigration lawyers say that if the refugee process is closed, you only need to request its reopening. And if that isn’t possible, you can request the opening of a new case, where it will be clarified that the person had an open previous case.
I don’t know how much of this is exactly as they tell us, but achieving good immigration status in Brazil for Cubans is something that requires attention and seriousness.