Over 100,000 Brazilians waiting for a passport after stoppages

Photo: Breno Saturnino/Shutterstock

After budgetary strains interrupted passport issuance in Brazil, the federal government said Brazilians began receiving their travel documents on December 24. Still, more than 108,000 Brazilians are still waiting for passports, per latest available data.

The Federal Police suspended passport issuance for the first time on November 19. The activity was resumed a week later after the injection of an extra BRL 37.3 million (USD 6.6 million) in the federal budget. The service was shut down again between December 1 and 23. It took another BRL 31.4 million for the service to be resumed.

The government did not say how much time the new funds have bought nor the deadline for all applicants to receive their documents.

In a statement from last Saturday, the Federal Police said passports requested in December will be issued “on a gradual basis,” and new requests will only be processed after the backlog is dealt with.

Even without resources to issue the travel document, the service’s online scheduling and service at the police stations continued to function normally over the past few weeks.

Amanda Audi

Amanda Audi is a journalist specializing in politics and human rights. She is the former executive director of Congresso em Foco and worked as a reporter for The Intercept Brasil, Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, Gazeta do Povo, Poder360, among others. In 2019, she won the Comunique-se Award for best-written media reporter and won the Mulher Imprensa award for web journalism in 2020