Rio de Janeiro, June 20, 2018 – On June 19, in the campus of Caxias da Baixada Fluminense, the second seminar was held on the topics of migrations and refuge with the presence of the Pastoral Care of Migrants.

The significant progress that took place among the students of the University in relation to the activities and the concrete commitment in relation to the subject was perceived. Another important point was the presence of professionals and officials of secretariats of the state of Rio committed to the cause in the field of health and education. The culminating moment of the seminar was the presence of migrants and refugees dialoguing with the present people and proposing collective solutions together with civil society organizations, government, and migrants as protagonists of history.

“In the case of migrations and migration policies in the country, the abyss between the legal and the practical, the ideal that exists in the law and the precarious conditions, the bureaucracy and the bad attention of the migration authorities persist. We know about how much progress still needs to be made in integration between migration law and migration policies that demonstrate that we can really be an example for the Region and the World, at least not in the sense of the best law of migration and refuge in the world when we are not even applying these legislations in practice. There is no point in saying that Brazil is welcoming if in the practice of everyday life nobody is interested in those who arrive with the exception of the Churches,” said Fr. Mário Geremia, Director of the Scalabrinian Center of Rio de Janeiro and person in charge of the Pastoral Care of Migrants.

In this sense, it was clearly perceived that the Churches are in the daily routine of this harsh and sad reality of migrants and their emergencies.