For seven months, the printers at U.S. consulates in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo sat silent on cases that had already cleared every legal hurdle. Interviews happened, files were approved, and then nothing — because a blanket freeze on immigrant visas kept the physical documents from ever being issued. On August 21, a federal judge tore that freeze down, and Brazilian newsrooms spent the week treating it as some of the biggest immigration news of the year.
