Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Ministry announced its decision to return to the Global Compact for Migration, endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly late in 2018. The text contains a series of commitments to protect immigrants and make migration safer.
Brazil originally voted in favor of the non-binding agreement but withdrew from the Compact in early 2019, days after then-President Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in.
The month before taking office as Mr. Bolsonaro’s first foreign minister, diplomat Ernesto Araújo wrote that “immigration should not be treated as a global issue, but in accordance with the reality and sovereignty of each country.”
Under Mr. Bolsonaro, Brazil’s foreign policy was closely allied to that led by Donald Trump in the U.S. Both countries drafted a declaration against abortion. Similarly, Mr. Bolsonaro announced plans to follow in Mr. Trump’s footsteps and move Brazil’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Fearing impacts on Brazil’s halal meat exports, the government later settled on opening a business office in the city.
The decision to withdraw from the Global Compact for Migration was met with criticism as Brazil is a net exporter of immigrants. Recent government data estimates that just 1.3 million foreign immigrants live in Brazil. Conversely, over 4.2 million Brazilians live abroad.
“Brazil’s return to the compact reinforces the Brazilian government’s commitment to the protection and promotion of the rights of more than 4 million Brazilians living abroad,” said the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The UN Refugee Agency’s office in Brazil commended the country for returning to the pact. In a commuiqué to the press, livelihoods officer Paulo Sérgio Almeida said the decision “reinforces Brazil’s commitment to global governance for the international mobility of people […] ensuring their rights and the means so that migrants and refugees can contribute positively to the host countries.”
Diplomatic U-turn
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first week in office has been full of foreign policy changes in relation to his predecessor. The Foreign Affairs Ministry “followed with great concern” the visit of Israel’s new national security minister, the ultranationalist Itama Ben-Gvir, to Temple Mount — a Jerusalem holy site sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
Columnist André Pagliarini has shown that Lula is eager to pick up where his Workers’ Party left off.
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