I am contemplating bringing on a Class Action Suit naming as co-respondents the Policia Federal, Ministério da Justiça, Conselho Nacional de Imigração for unacceptable delays in the issuing of VIPER Permanent Visas and the subsequent Cédula de Identidade Estrangeiro (CIE).
In most cases that I know about it is taking more than 2 years for the visa itself to be granted and then as much as another year or two waiting for the identity card to be issued, by the time you get it almost half of its useful life is already used up.
Yet, when Hatian refugees arrive in Brazil, or some convicted murderer and terrorist using forged documents arrives on Brazilian soil they are bumped to the head of the waiting list and their documents are ready almost same-day. This is impossible to understand and discriminates against all law abiding foreigners who seek permanency in Brazil.
I would ask all of our Brazil Forum members to post a quick reply so I can research some information. I'd like to know the following information:
1. If you already have your VIPER Visa and CIE, how long did you have to wait between applying for the VIPER and the time you actually were informed that it had been granted? How long between applying for the CIE went by until you actually picked it up at the Federal Police?
2. If you have applied for a VIPER Visa and have not yet received any further word about the progress of your case, how long have you been waiting since you applied?
3. If you've applied for the CIE and it hasn't been delivered yet, how long have you now been waiting?
This situation is becoming more and more intolerable with each passing year. The discrimination against expats in this country is more than obvious. We have to jump through all the hoops and sift through mountains of red-tape, yet the Brazilian government doesn't give a rats ass that the delay in producing the documents we've applied for puts our lives into a state of limbo for years. There are so many things you can't do in this country until you have the actual document in hand.
With enough of the foregoing information available to me I then will be consulting with a noted immigration lawyer to see if there is some avenue through the Federal Courts to force some kind of improvement in this clearly deficient system of issuing visas.
Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team