BY OLIVER STUENKEL | SEPTEMBER 29, 2016
Bringing more refugees to Brazil could help the country overcome its economic malaise – and boost its international profile.
http://americasquarterly.org/content/temer-and-refugees-brazil-mark
At a United Nations summit in New York last week, Brazil’s President Michel Temer proudly declared that his country was home to more than 95,000 refugees. The revelation stirred admiring nods from diplomats in attendance at a time when the number of global refugees has surpassed that of World War II, creating a serious threat to global stability. Yet it turned out there was a problem with Temer’s speech – the number he gave was not correct.
That is because the 95,000 figure included roughly 85,000 Haitian migrants, who are escaping poverty but are not facing persecution at home. As a consequence, neither the U.N.’s agency for refugees (UNHCR) nor Brazil’s National Committee for Refugees (CONARE) regard them as refugees. Granted, Brazil’s decision to welcome so many Haitians over the past years is laudable (they received a humanitarian visa especially created for them by the Brazilian government), and one may question whether the international rules of who qualifies as a refugee, created in the 1950s, still make sense. And yet, experts were right to criticize Temer for massaging the numbers when it comes to such a sensitive subject for the international community.
In truth, as the Brazilian Justice Ministry’s own website states, Brazil is currently home to fewer than 9,000 refugees, about a fifth of whom are Syrians. That pales in comparison to the more than 20 million refugees in the world today.
But there is still time for Temer to make up for his lapse: Brazil should use the number he announced as its new target, and work towards accepting roughly 100,000 refugees. There are numerous good reasons to do so – political and economic.
Paradoxically, it was the Rousseff government, otherwise disinterested in global affairs, which first grasped the reality of the refugee crisis. While Brazil already maintained an open-door policy, Rousseff’s Minister of Justice Eugênio Aragão earlier this year initiated negotiations with the EU to bring more refugees (those involved privately spoke of 100,000 over five years) to South America’s largest nation, provided that European governments pay for their integration in Brazil.
Temer’s government, which took over in May as Rousseff was being impeached, has shown far less interest in the matter, unwilling to set specific goals. Negotiations with the EU are no longer a priority. That is bad news, because a deal would have generated tangible benefits both for Brazil, the refugees, and global stability – at a very limited cost, considering that additional financial support could be requested from richer countries unwilling to take refugees – such as Japan, China and Saudi Arabia.
There are three reasons why such a refugee deal would make sense for Brazil:
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Photo credit: Beto Barata/PR
