From an immigration to an emigration country:

1

• From an immigration to an emigration country
• some remarks on Brazilian transitional
• experience as a challenge to migration policies
• Helion Póvoa-Neto
• Migration Studies Group (NIEM)
• Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)
• IGU Commission International Conference on
• Transnational processes and crossing places new
  forms of international mobility
• Gran Canaria, Spain, June 19-21, 2009

2

• Transitional experiences in international
  migration emigrationgtimmigration (Spain, Italy,
  Greece, Ireland), emigrationgttransitgtimmigration
  (Morocco, Mexico), mixed situations (Portugal),
  immigrationgtemigration (Brazil, Argentina, other
  South American countries) return movements may
  be intervenient processes in these cases
• Mobility transition hypothesis by Wilbur
  Zelinsky (1971), rooted in modernization theory,
  enumerates stages and enforces a transitional
  migration perspective, recognizing complex,
  non-linear relations between migration and
  general social, economic, demographic
  transformation (Hein de Haas, 2007).
• Transitions represent symbolic, political, and
  cultural challenges to societies involved
  (Agrela, 2002).
• Brazil, as other South American societies, faces
  a transitional process of becoming, for the very
  first time, an emigration country, and begins to
  develop state policies coherent to this new
  situation.

3
Brief historical panorama of immigration policy
in Brazil

• 19th century and first decades of 20th century
  state-supported immigration, mainly from Europe
  (from 1908 also from Japan) main goals were to
  promote labour force for plantations and urban
  industry, create settlement colonies and promote
  Europeanization
• 1930s and 40s imposition of quota regimes,
  interruption of immigration during war,
  State-promoted hostility toward Axis immigrants
• Post-war refugees and continuity of former
  immigration flows, till the 60s (without official
  support)
• 1970s farmers frontier expansion to Paraguay
  (brasiguaios)
• From the 1980s newimmigration (Latin
  Americans, Asians, Africans), return movements of
  brasiguaio farmers and beginning of emigration
  flows to U.S., Japan, and Europe

4
Brazilian farmers emigration to Paraguay
(WENDEN, Catherine Wihtol de. Atlas de migrations
dans le monde. Paris Autrement, 2005)
5
Political opportunities and challenges for a
migration policy coherent to the new situation

• 1990s and 2000s discovery of emigration as a
  major social process in Brazilian society
• Increasing attention of Brazilian (and
  international) midia to a new phenomemon
• First academic studies about Brazilian emigration
  (most focusing communities in U.S. and Japan)
• Incidents increase public awareness of the
  presence of a Brazilian diaspora abroad
  repatriation of emigrants (but also of students
  and travellers) by immigration authorities in
  European airports involvement of Brazilians in
  international criminal chains of traffic and
  sexual exploitation imprisoning of Brazilians in
  U.S. and Japan murder of Jean Charles de Menezes
  by British police in 2005 (taken for a terrorist
  in London metro).
• Concerns of immigration authorities in
  destination countries about growing of Brazilian
  communities they increasingly cease to be
  considered as an invisible minority (Margolis,
  1994).

6
Political opportunities and challenges for a
migration policy coherent to the new situation

• Consular and remittances data about Brazilian
  emigrants suggest a new magnitude for the
  phenomenon 7.3 billion of remittances in 2006
  (United Nations) population of about 3.1
  millions abroad in 2007 (Ministry of Foreign
  Relations, probably underestimated)
• (Brazil, Ministry of Foreign Relations, 2007)

7
International meetings by NGOs and communities of
Brazilians abroad

• 1st International Symposium on Brazilian
  Emigration. Lisbon, Portugal (1997)
• 1st Iberian Meeting of Brazilian Communities
  Abroad. Lisbon, Portugal (2002). Lisbon Letter
  as a document with consistent demands, such as
  facilitating remittances, social security
  bilateral agreements, advising campaigns about
  risks of migration and immigrant rights etc.
• 1st Brazilian Summit. Boston, U.S., 2005. Boston
  Letter demands opening of new consular
  representations and a State Policy for the needs
  of Brazilians abroad
• 2nd Brazilian Summit. Brussels, Belgium, 2007.
  Creation of a network of Brazilians in Europe.
  3rd Summit will happen next July, in Barcelona,
  Spain.
• Brazilian emigrants in Switzerland create the
  Brasileirinhos Apátridas (Stateless Little
  Brazilians) campaign, demanding modification in
  jus soli law which did not grant Brazilian
  nationality to children of emigrants born abroad.
  Campaign in victorious and in 2007 a
  Constitutional Amendment recognizes Brazilian
  nationality to the foreign-born.

8
Involvement of State Agencies

• Candidates for presidential elections of 2002
  sign compromises to Brazilians abroad
• Ministry of Foreign Relations begins to attempt
  to and to assist Brazilian emigrants activism.
• National Council of Immigration of Brazil (CNI),
  from Ministry of Labour, begins to be involved
  with Brazilian abroad, and creates the first
  House for the Brazilian Worker in the border with
  Paraguay, to assist emigrants, return immigrants
  and commuters. It is significative that this
  Council is in transit to be renamed as Council
  National of Migration.
• International Labour Organization (ILO) begins to
  collaborate with Ministry of Labour in prom,oting
  decent work and campaign for the Brazilian
  government to sign and ratify international
  conventions of United Nations and ILO on the
  rights of migrants workers.
• Ministry of Justice begins in 2004 campaign with
  UNODC, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
  to fight trafficking of Brazilians abroad.
• UNODC is mandated to assist member states in the
  struggle against illicit drugs, crime and
  terrorism. Brazil is a signatory of 2000 Palermo
  Convention against international crime, including
  the traffic of human beings.

9
Council National of Immigration Guide for
Brazilians Abroad (2007)
10
Ministry of Justice campaign warning against
human trafic

• At first they take you passport, then they take
  your liberty

11
Fake job offerts abroad by Trama NGO
12
Trama campaign

• contents Maria dos Santos, 21 yo
• Origin Brazil
• Destination human trafic

13
Difficulties and controversies about an
emigration policy in Brazil

• Statistics about Brazilians abroad are still very
  incomplete, since there are probably more than
  50? undocumented, failing to appear in
  statistics.
• Interaction and collaboration between Brazilian
  state agencies is still far from satisfactory
  some attributions overlap and there is
  considerable competition between them
• For a country which is a major contributor to
  international migration as an area of origin, it
  would be politically very significant to sign and
  ratify the 1990 United Nations Conventions on the
  Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families.
  Brazil is the only Mercosul member not to have
  done it.
• Some researchers point that Brazilian educated
  workers may also be in the way to become a focus
  for international brain drain the Province of
  Québec, Canada, has just opened (2008) an
  immigration office in São Paulo to promote
  qualified work emigration.
• Accepting the transition from an immigration to
  an emigration country is hard for Brazils
  historical self-depiction as a large territory
  with a moving frontier and room for all its
  national population. Persistent depictions that
  no more correspond to reality represent an
  additional difficulty for establishing a coherent
  and effective policy in the field of emigration.

14
References

• AGRELA, B. (2002) Spain as a Recent Country of
  Immigration How Immigration Became a Symbolic,
  Political, and Cultural Problem in the "New
  Spain". San Diego, University of California.
  Center for Comparative Immigration Studies.
  Working Papers. n. 57. http//repositories.cdlib.
  org/ccis/papers/wrkg57
• DE HAAS, H. (2007). Moroccos migration
  experience a transitional perspective.
  International Migration 45(4).
• MARGOLIS, M. (1994). Little Brazil An
  Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York
  City. Princeton Princeton University.
• MARGOLIS, M. (1998). An Invisible Minority
  Brazilian Immigrants in New York City. Boston
  Allyn and Bacon.
• SPRANDEL. M. A. (2008). Personal communication.
• ZELINSKY, W. (1971). The Hypothesis of the
  Mobility Transition. Geographical Review 61, no.
  2, 219-249.