The expressions of interest were void in June and allowed a foreigner to regularize with 12 months of discounts, even if he had entered with a tourist visa. The immigrants ask to return.
A commission representing immigrant associations that met this afternoon in Parliament to request the return of expressions of interest was called to a meeting with the organization’s vice president, Teresa Morais.
The delegation brought together representatives of the associations Solidariedade Imigrante, Olho Vivo and Renovar a Mouraria, among others, who organized the demonstration that brings together a few hundred immigrants in protest asking the Government to reverse the changes in the immigration law, made in June . .
The expressions of interest were a legal remedy, completed in June, which allowed a foreigner to regularize with 12 months of discountseven if you had entered with a tourist visa.
“We are all immigrants””I exist with or without a visa” or “residences for all, documents for all,” were some of the slogans of the protesters who had a very low representation of Brazilian immigrant associations, the largest community in the country.
This division in the associative movement is due, according to Timóteo Macedo, leader of Solidariedade Imigrante – the largest in the country – to the “segregationist policy” of the Government that gives priority to immigrants from the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries and “closes the doors to all others”, as “if there were first and second class immigrants”.
The posters distributed included phrases such as “the rich are exempt from visas, the poor are not”, “without immigrants there is no future, expression of interest is”, “I live here, I stay here, I am not leaving” or “we are not disposable, “Expulsion is not a solution.”
Source: Observadora
