Brazil and International Migrations in the Twenty-first Century: Flows and Policies Notes de l'Ifri, April 2014
The second half of the XXth century is a unique stage in the history of Brazilian migrations: the attractiveness of Brazil as a country of immigration declines, due to economic hardships and a shift in public perceptions of migrants, who are increasingly framed as a security liability.
Immigration numbers plummet and emigration increases until, at the beginning of the 90s, the country faces negative net migration. The election of the Labour party in 2003, the strong economic performance of the country in 2008 amidst the global financial crisis and the Haitian earthquake in 2010, reverse this trend: Brazil recovers its appeal both for new migrants and for Brazilian who had left the country.
Is Brazil ready to welcome these new immigrants? What kind of policy has been implemented to manage these new migratory flows? What new economic, political and social challenges do they bring?
Duval Fernandes, Maria da Consolação Gomes de Castro et Silvana Pena Knup give a first answer to these questions.
Duval Fernandes is Professor at the Minas Gerais University in Brazil and visiting professor at the Cayetano Heredia University in Peru. His main areas of interest are migratory flows in a demographic perspective. Last year, M. Fernandez managed an important project bringing together members of the IOM, the ministry of labour and NGOs, to map out the immigration of Haïtians to Brazil.
Maria da Consolação Gomes de Castro holds a research position as an expert in human resources at the Minas Gerais University and is a member of the university’s research team on international migrations.
Silvana Pena Knup is a PhD student at the Minas Gerais University. Her research focuses on the vulnerability of the family and community ties of Brazilian children whose family leaves small cities in Brazil for large urban areas in the US. Since 1995, she manages educative projects in a vulnerable community in Belo Horizonte.
This paper is part of the “Emerging markets and migration policies” publication series.