The latest report from the International Migration Observatory (Obmigra), which should be fully released next week, shows that the five Brazilian regions face different challenges in welcoming foreign people who choose Brazil to live. 
“A public policy for immigrants in the Northeast has to be different for the North, South and Southeast. The formulation of these policies must be based on evidence”, said professor Leonardo Cavalcanti, from the University of Brasília, who was present at the launch of a summary of the data at the Ministry of Justice. The event was intended to mark International Migrants Day, which is celebrated this Wednesday (18). “Migration Dynamics in the Macroregions of Brazil” is the name of the report.
The annual Obmigra survey covers the period from 2022 to the first half of 2024. The document presents a detailed analysis of migratory dynamics in the five Brazilian regions. The researchers who presented the summary of the document explained that the research included information and participation from the Ministries of Justice, Labor and Employment and Foreign Affairs, in addition to data from the Federal Police and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Information from the Single Registry (CadÚnico) was used as a primary source to analyze immigrants’ access to social benefits.
Brasília – Professor Leonardo Cavalcanti, from OBMigra/UNB, at the presentation of the annual report – Wilson Dias/Agência Brasil
Differences
“The way immigrants enter the job market or school and how they request access to social benefits through CadÚnico, in addition to the composition of nationalities, is completely different between one region and another”, says the UnB researcher. He explains that evidence-based data allows managers and public policy makers to guide these policies in a more rational and effective way.
The researcher also notes that the North Region, despite being the entry route for immigrants, presents more vulnerabilities in access to benefits and public policies. Therefore, they spend less time in those states. “It’s the main entry point today for Venezuelans, for example,” says Leonardo Cavalcanti.
Challenges
The labor immigration coordinator at the Ministry of Justice, Jonatas Pabis, assesses that the majority of immigrants enter Brazil, in fact, through the North Region, but settle in the South, including areas such as the west of Santa Catarina, the west of Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul, working at the end of the agro-industrial chain.
Brasília – Jonatas Luis Pabis, from the Ministry of Justice, at the presentation of the OBMigra Annual Report – Wilson Dias/Agência Brasil
“The report can shed light on the challenge of implementing migration regularization and reception in the North Region, which presents us with logistical challenges, at the same time as guarantees and rights of integration of these immigrants into society in the South and Southeast regions”, says Pabis.
Venezuelans
Researcher Leonardo Cavalcanti explains that the immigration of Haitians (in the first five years of the last decade) and Venezuelans, subsequently, marked the flow of people to Brazil. “Venezuelans surpassed Haitians in all records. They surpassed our classic migrations, of Portuguese and people from the global north. Now, we see people from Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America”, he says.
Jonatas Pabis understands that Brazil is a welcoming country, both due to its cultural identity and robust legislation, in line with international human rights protection mechanisms. “Nowadays, we see that people from all over the global south are interested in creating a life here in Brazil.
The two largest contingents of Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants are movements from the last 20 years.” He highlights that the possibility of migratory regularization is in line with human rights guarantees and adds that this consolidation became even more visible after the pandemic in search of work in Brazil.
Work
In the Southeast Region, for example, which has the largest population in the country, between 2022 and 2023 there was a 10.4% increase in the volume of immigrant workers, which went from 73.9 thousand to 81.5 thousand. The period from January to June 2024 showed, according to the researchers, a tendency for continued growth in the number of workers, which reached 87.5 thousand.
Still in relation to the job market, researchers observed that the South Region absorbs a growing number of immigrants, mainly Venezuelans. Another record is that the majority of immigrants employed are in labor-intensive sectors, such as poultry and pig slaughtering.
